Systems and methods for ease of graphical display design workflow in a process control plant

ABSTRACT

A graphical display configuration system of a process control system provides features within the configuration environment so that the runtime appearance and/or runtime behavior of graphical elements and/or graphical display views (or portions thereof) are able to be validated and/or verified in-line with their configuration workflows wholly within the configuration environment, without having to publish, compile, and/or download draft graphical configurations into the operating environment of a process plant supported by the process control system, and/or without requiring specialized scripts to be implemented within the operating environment of the process plant. The validation may be based on data provided from one or more sources external to the draft display view configuration, e.g., from the configuration and/or the operating environment. Examples of such features include in-line data reference link validation, local test, completeness and/or visual salience assessments, and/or disassociation of configuration comments from published configurations, to name a few.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to and the benefit of the filing date of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/566,679, filed on Oct. 2, 2017, entitled “Systems And Methods For Graphical Display Configuration and Usage in Process Control Plants,” the entire disclosure of which is hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

This disclosure relates generally to process control systems, and, more particularly, to systems and methods for configuring graphics utilized by operators to view and respond to real-time conditions within and operations of an on-line, industrial process plant.

BACKGROUND

Distributed process control systems are used in chemical, pharmaceutical, petroleum, oil and gas, metals and mining, pulp and paper, or other types of industrial process plants to control one or more industrial processes to thereby generate or produce one or more physical products from raw materials and/or other types of source materials. As such, distributed process control systems typically include one or more process controllers and input/output (I/O) devices communicatively coupled to at least one host or operator interface device and to one or more field devices via analog, digital or combined analog/digital buses, or via a wireless communication link or network. The field devices, which may be, for example, valves, valve positioners, switches, and transmitters (e.g., temperature, pressure, level and flow rate sensors), are located within the process environment and generally perform physical or process control functions, such as opening or closing valves, or measuring process parameters to control one or more industrial processes executing within the process plant or system. Smart field devices, such as field devices conforming to the well-known Fieldbus protocol may also perform control calculations, alarming functions, and other control functions commonly implemented within a controller. The process controllers, which are also typically located within the plant environment, receive signals indicative of process measurements made by sensors or field devices and/or other information pertaining to the field devices and execute a controller application that runs, for example, different control modules that make process control decisions, generate control signals based on the received information, and coordinate with the control modules or blocks being performed in the field devices, such as HART®, Wireless HART®, and FOUNDATION® Fieldbus field devices. The control modules in the controller send the control signals over the communication lines or links to the field devices to thereby control the operation of at least a portion of the process plant or system.

Information from the field devices and the controller is usually made available over a data highway to one or more other hardware devices, such as operator interfaces, personal computers, or computing devices, data historians, report generators, centralized databases, or other centralized administrative computing devices that are typically, but not always, placed in control rooms or other locations away from the harsher plant environment. Each of these hardware devices typically, though not always, is centralized across the process plant or across a portion of the process plant. These hardware devices run applications that may, for example, enable an operator to view current statuses and operations of processes that are running within the plant, perform functions with respect to controlling a process and/or operating the process plant, such as changing settings of the process control routine, modifying the operation of the control modules within the controllers or the field devices, viewing alarms generated by field devices and controllers, simulating the operation of the process for the purpose of training personnel or testing the process control software, keeping and updating a configuration database, etc. The data highway utilized by the hardware devices, controllers, and field devices may include a wired communication path, a wireless communication path, or a combination of wired and wireless communication paths.

As an example, the DeltaV™ control system, sold by Emerson, includes multiple applications stored within and executed by different user interface devices located at diverse places within a process plant, and in some instances, remotely from the process plant. Each of these applications provides a user interface (UI) to allow a user (e.g., a configuration engineer, an operator, a maintenance technician, etc.) to view and/or modify aspects of the process plant operation and configuration. Throughout this specification, the phrase “user interface” or “UI” is used to refer to an application or screen that allows a user to view or modify the configuration, operation, or status of the process plant. Similarly, the phrase “user interface device” or “UI device” is used herein to refer to a device on which a user interface is operating, whether that device is stationary (e.g., a workstation, wall-mounted display, process control device display, etc.) or mobile (e.g., a laptop computer, tablet computer, smartphone, etc.).

A configuration application, which resides in one or more user workstations or computing devices included in a configuration environment of a process plant, enables configuration engineers and/or other types of users to create or change process control modules and download these process control modules via a data highway to dedicated distributed controllers that operate in an operating environment of the process plant (which is also referred to interchangeably herein as an “operations environment” of the process plant) to control one or more processes during runtime or real-time operations. Typically, these control modules are made up of communicatively interconnected function blocks, which perform functions within the control scheme based on inputs thereto and which provide outputs to other function blocks within the control scheme. Each dedicated controller and, in some cases, one or more field devices, stores and executes a respective controller application that runs the control modules assigned and downloaded thereto to implement actual process control functionality.

The configuration application also allows configuration engineers and/or other users to create or change operator Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs) or display views that are used by an operator viewing application to display data (e.g., as the data is generated in real-time during runtime operations of the process plant) to an operator and to enable the operator to change various settings, such as set points, within the process control routines during runtime operations. The operator viewing applications that provide the operator HMIs or display views are executed on one or more user interface devices (e.g., operator workstations, operator tablets, operator mobile devices, etc.) included in the operations environment of the process plant (or on one or more remote computing devices in communicative connection with the operator workstations and the data highway). The operator HMIs or display views receive data from the controller applications via the data highway and display this data to operators or other users using the UIs at the user interface devices. Similarly, the operator HMIs or display views may also receive data (e.g., real time data) from other control components or elements included in the operating environment of the process plant other than control modules, such as controllers, process controllers, field devices, I/O cards or devices, other types of hardware devices, units, areas, and the like. A data historian application is typically stored in and executed by a data historian device that collects and stores some or all of the data provided across the data highway while a configuration database application may run in a still further computer attached to the data highway to store the current process control routine configuration, the current operator display configuration, and data associated therewith. Alternatively, the configuration database may be located in the same workstation as the configuration application.

As noted above, the operator viewing applications typically execute in one or more of the operator user interface devices and provide operator HMIs or display views to the operator or maintenance persons regarding the operating state of the control system, control components, and/or devices within the plant, e.g., while the plant is operating in real-time or runtime to control one or more industrial processes. Generally speaking, operator HMIs or display views are used by operators in day-to-day operations (which may, for example, be 24/7 operations) of the process running in the process plant to view and respond to real-time conditions within the process and/or the process plant. At least some of these operator HMIs or display views may take the form of, for example, alarming displays that receive alarms generated by controllers or devices within the process plant, control displays indicating the operating state of the controllers and other devices within the process plant, maintenance displays indicating the operating state of the devices within the process plant, etc. Display views typically execute in the runtime or real-time operating environment of the process plant, and are generally configured to present, in known manners, information or data received from process control modules, devices, and/or other control objects that are also operating within the runtime or real-time operating environment of the process plant. In some known systems, display views have a graphical element (e.g., a graphical representation or graphic) that is associated with a physical or logical element included in the operating environment and that is communicatively tied to the physical or logical element to receive data about the physical or logical element and updates thereto over time, e.g., during runtime operations of the process plant. The graphical element may be configured or defined to dynamically change its appearance on the display screen based on the received data to illustrate, for example, that a tank is half full, to illustrate the flow measured by a flow sensor, etc. As such, as the data provided by the physical or logical element in the operating environment of the process plant changes over time (e.g., is repeatedly or continually updated over time), the appearance of the corresponding graphical element is changed on the display screen accordingly.

In some currently-known operator display configuration architectures for industrial process control systems, each operator workstation independently manages its own alarms and access to real-time control data that is generated by process control modules, devices, and/or other control objects. As such, to customize an operator HMI or display view for a particular operator workstation, custom graphical properties, values, and/or configurations of various display view elements (e.g., graphical and other types of elements) that are to be presented on the runtime display view are defined and associated with the display view within a graphical configuration environment, and the definition or configuration of the display view is downloaded from the configuration environment into the particular operator workstation of the operating environment for execution. Often, custom scripts are programmed into the configuration of the display view so that desired behavior and/or appearances of the various display view elements and/or of the display view itself are executed at the particular operator workstation. Additionally, if the display view appearance or behavior is desired to be modified or changed for the particular operator workstation, typically the modifications must be applied to the configuration of the display view in the graphical configuration environment, and then the modified configuration must be downloaded from the configuration environment for execution at the particular operator workstation. In most cases, this requires that the particular operator workstation cease its execution of the current display view in order for the modified display view configuration to be received and executed at the particular operator workstation.

In other currently-known operator display configuration architectures for industrial process control systems, a common configuration for a display view is downloaded from the graphical configuration environment to multiple operator workstations. To effect particular, customized appearances and/or behaviors of the display view at a particular operator workstation, though, during runtime the particular operator workstation at which the display view is executing must query or otherwise communicate with the graphical configuration environment to obtain necessary information (such as particular configurations of various graphics, runtime values, and/or other information) to effect or implement the desired customized appearances and/or behaviors of the display view at the particular operator workstation. As modern-day process plants may include hundreds of operator workstations, the messages that are sent and received between operator workstations and back-end display configuration servers add a significant load to process plant communication networks.

Recently, the Center for Operator Performance (COP), a research consortium that addresses human capabilities and limitations in industrial process control operating environments through research, collaboration, and human factors engineering, and the International Society of Automation (ISA) have been working to help advance industrial process control system Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs) and their ease of use, for example, by suggesting improvements and guidelines in Human Centered Design (HCD). For example, the American National Standard ANSI/ISA-101.01.-2015 entitled “Human Machine Interfaces for Process Automation Systems” and approved on Jul. 9, 2015 addresses “the philosophy, design, implementation, operation, and maintenance of Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs) for process automated systems including multiple work processes throughout the HMI lifecycle . . . [t]he standard defines the terminology and models to develop and HMI in the work processes recommended to effectively maintain the HMI throughout the lifecycle” (ANSI/ISA-101.01-2015, page 9).

SUMMARY

As discussed above, generally speaking, operator Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs) or display views are used by operators during the runtime operations of the process to view and respond to conditions within the process and/or process plant. The effectiveness of process plant operators in operating the process safely and effectively, as well as in detecting and responding to various process and process plant conditions depends, in a large part, on how well the operator HMIs or display views are designed (e.g., by the configuration engineers or other operator HMI designers). However, recent changes in how industrial process plants are operated greatly affect the design of operator HMIs. For example, continued competitive pressure in process control industries has led to a significant expansion in the span of a portion of the process for which a single operator is responsible. With this expansion, the number of process graphics that the single operator must monitor and utilize to safely and efficiently run the process has increased several-fold. In fact, in a present day process plant, operators are commonly expected to navigate through hundreds of process graphics. In addition, trends such as increasing intelligence in plant equipment and more automated and advanced control logic in process control industries have led to a significant increase in the level of complexity of the portion of the process for which a single operator is responsible.

Further, the work space that is utilized by a single operator may include one to many consoles or monitors in a variety of sizes. The number and sizes of monitors and/or consoles are often determined by the size and complexity of the portion of the process being monitored by the operator. Additionally, when an operator's work space includes multiple monitors, each monitor typically has a custom layout defined for each monitor's respective monitor size, location, and portion of the process being monitored. For example, the custom layout defines what displays should open on which monitor, how displays on different monitors interact with each other, etc.

Still further, as no two process plants or operating sections within a plant are alike, in practice each process plant often develops and designs its own, custom operational philosophies, graphics, and/or graphical standards for effective operation. Accordingly, the operator HMI graphics, strategies, design, layout, navigation, and/or operator actions may be, to a significant extent, custom built for different operating sections and/or different process plants.

These and other factors have made the configuration engineer's job of designing operating HMIs ever more difficult. Often, configuration engineers must create complex, programmatic extensions to operator HMIs to customize or hone various capabilities for particular operating sections and/or plants. Commonly, configuration engineers must utilize programming languages like Visual Basic or C, and/or other custom programs to create the desired operator HMI. This results in a complex operator HMI suite that is difficult and time consuming to develop, extend, troubleshoot, and maintain.

At least some of the aspects of the novel graphical display configuration and usage systems and methods disclosed herein address these and other modern-day HMI challenges, as well as provide a platform for industrial process control HMI design and use that is not only flexible, easy to use, and easy to maintain, but also helps engineers design and implement their process plant's operating environment HMI in light of current process automation HMI standards and best practices.

In an embodiment, a graphical display configuration and usage system for an industrial process plant (also interchangeably referred to herein as a “graphical configuration system” or a “graphical configuration and usage system”) includes a graphical display configuration application that executes in a configuration environment of the process plant. The graphical display configuration application includes a user interface via which various operator HMIs or display views are able to be created, defined, designed, and/or published, e.g., by a configuration engineer. A configured or defined display view, when downloaded into and executing in the operating or operations environment of the process plant, provides an operator or other user with real-time (e.g., continually or repeatedly updated) operating states and statuses of various components and operations associated with the process. As such, a display view typically includes respective links between one or more display view elements presented on the display view and one or more control modules, devices, or control objects that are executing to control the process within the operating environment of the process plant so that, upon download and execution of a published configuration of the display view at a user interface device that is communicatively connected to an operating environment of the process plant (e.g., at an operator workstation, remote computing device, mobile device, etc.), respective indications of one or more values or other data that are provided or generated by the one or more control modules, devices, or control objects while executing in the operating environment of the process plant are presented and repeatedly updated on the executing display view, e.g., via the linked display view elements.

The graphical display configuration system also includes a centralized configuration database or library that stores published configurations or definitions of display views as well as published configurations or definitions of display view elements that are available to be included on or otherwise associated with various display views. In some embodiments, the centralized configuration database or library also stores draft configurations or definitions of display views and/or display view elements. Examples of display view elements include graphics, properties, links to control modules, devices, objects, and/or other control components or elements that are disposed in the operating environment, global variables, parameters, areas or subsections of the display view, and/or other elements and/or portions of the display view. In an example, for a particular display view, the centralized configuration database or library stores a published configuration of the particular display view and optionally one or more working or draft configurations of the particular display view. The published configuration of the particular display view may include one or more published configurations of various display view elements that are to appear on the executing display view, and the published display view configuration is available for download and execution in the operating environment of the process plant. On the other hand, the one or more working or draft configurations of the particular display view are excluded from download and execution in the operating environment of the process plant. That is, working or draft configurations of display views and of display view elements are prevented from being downloaded and executed in the operating environment of the process, and instead are maintained within the configuration environment, e.g., for edit, modification, testing, etc.

The published configuration or definition of the particular display view includes one or more user controls via which an operator or user of the user interface device included in the operating environment of the process plant is able to change an appearance of the executing display view at his or her respective user interface device on-line during runtime operations. For example, the operator, via the one or more user controls at his or her respective user interface device, is able to change the appearance of a graphic, a property of a graphic, an area of the display view, a property and/or content of the area of a display view, a location of a graphic on the display view, particular data sourced by a control module, device, or control object that is to be displayed, and/or other appearances of elements, areas, or portions of the executing display view. Significantly, the graphics configuration system allows the change to the appearance of the executing display view in the operating environment to be implemented at the operator workstation solely based upon contents of the published configuration or definition of the display view that is executing at the operator workstation. That is, the downloaded, published configuration of the display view allows the operator to customize or change the appearance of the display view at the operator's workstation while the display view is executing on-line in the operating environment without having to halt the execution of the display view, without having to download a different configuration of the display view, and without the display view and/or the operator workstation needing to obtain data from the configuration environment to implement the desired change.

Accordingly, when the published configuration or definition of the particular display view is downloaded to multiple user interface devices or operator workstations included in the operating environment of the process plant, each operator or user is able to customize or change the local appearance of the instance of the display view that is executing at his or her workstation independently of other operators or users, and without his or her workstation communicating with the graphical display configuration application and configuration library. Some of the operator-initiated changes or customizations may be implemented in a mutually exclusive manner at a particular workstation, for example, a fill property of a graphic is selected by the operator to be either gray or blue, but not both gray and blue. Some of the changes may not be mutually exclusive at a particular workstation (e.g., the changes may be cumulative or independently applied), such as when the operator drags and drops graphics that are indicative of particular control elements that the operator desires to actively (and easily) monitor into an Active Monitor or Watch window included on the display view.

In an embodiment, a method for configuring graphical displays for runtime or real-time operations of a process plant includes receiving, via a user interface of a graphical display configuration application executing in a configuration environment of a process plant, a definition of a display view. The display view typically includes various graphical elements that are representative of respective control modules, devices, and/or other control components (also referred to interchangeably herein as control elements or control objects) that execute or operate in the operating environment of the process plant, e.g., to control at least a portion of the process, such as controllers, process controllers, field devices, I/O cards or devices, other types of hardware devices, units, areas, etc. Accordingly, the definition of the display view defines a link between a graphical element presented on the display view and a control component or object so that, upon download and execution of the display view in the operating environment of the process plant, one or more values or other data that are generated by the control component or control object while executing in the operating environment of the process plant to control the process are presented and repeatedly updated on the executing display view via the linked graphical element. The graphical element may be, for example, a graphic that is indicative or representative of a particular control module, device, or other control component or object.

Additionally, typically the definition of the display view includes respective definitions of various other graphical portions, elements, or components (and/or combinations thereof) that are included on and/or otherwise associated with the display view, such as graphics, text, properties of graphics and/or text (e.g., color, contrast, animations, etc.), global variables, parameters, different areas of the display view, respective properties and/or content of different areas of the display view, different locations of various graphics, text, and/or areas on the display view, and/or particular operating data that is sourced by control modules, devices, and/or other control objects and their linkages to respective graphics or other elements on the display view, to name a few. Other such graphical portions, elements, and/or components which may be included on and/or otherwise associated with the display view may include, for example, display view hierarchies, display view layouts, timers, embedded links, animation conversion functions, data references, project or plant standards, display themes, content languages and/or indications thereof, application languages and/or indications thereof, tab areas on display views, tooltips and/or other contextual displays, trends and other representations of historized parameters, watch or active monitoring areas, and/or other features, aspects, and/or functionalities provided by the present graphical configuration and usage systems and methods described herein. Still other graphical portions, elements, and/or components which may be included on and/or otherwise associated with the display view may include custom and/or default Graphic Element Module (GEM) configurations (e.g., such as described in co-owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/692,450 filed on Aug. 31, 2017 and entitled “Derived and Linked Definitions with Override,” and/or may include operator display switching preview configurations and/or objects associated therewith (e.g., such as described in co-owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/243,176 filed on Aug. 22, 2016 and entitled “Operator Display Switching Preview.”

At any rate, for ease of reading herein, such graphical portions, elements, or components (and combinations thereof) that are included on or otherwise associated with a display view are generally referred to interchangeably herein as “graphical display view elements,” “graphical elements,” “graphical components,” “display view elements,” “display elements,” or “display view components.” Typically, each display view element may be defined by or configured using its own separate object, where the object may be created, modified, stored, and published via the graphical configuration and usage systems and methods described herein.

Some of the definitions of display view elements may define mutually exclusive options, for example, the color theme of the display view in its entirety may be selectively changed by the operator between various defined color themes, or the language that is used on the display view is switched by the operator between Arabic and French. Some of the definitions of display view elements may not be mutually exclusive, such as when the operator drags and drops graphics that are indicative of particular control elements that the operator desires to actively (and easily) monitor into an Active Monitor or Watch window included on the display view.

With particular regard to a display view configuration or definition that defines a plurality of properties that are selectable in the operating environment in a mutually exclusive manner for application to a particular portion of the executing display view, the method includes receiving, via the user interface of the graphical display configuration application, an indication of a selection of a subset of a plurality of user interface devices (e.g., operator workstations) that are included in the operating environment of the process plant and to which respective instances of the display view definition are to be downloaded for execution. The selected subset of user interface devices may include more than one user interface device, if desired. The method further includes downloading the definition of the display view (which may be a published definition) into each user interface device included in the selected subset of user interface devices for execution in the operating environment of the process plant, thereby enabling the particular portion of the executing display view to be selectively changed, in the mutually exclusive manner between the plurality of properties, independently at each user interface device. Accordingly, each user interface device implements its respective change solely based upon the contents of the downloaded definition of the display view executing at the user interface device, and without communicating with any other device included in the configuration environment of the process plant to effect or implement the change. Thus, a first operator may select “flashing” for a particular property of a particular graphic included on the display view at his or her workstation, while another operator may select “no flashing” for the particular property of the particular graphic included on the display view at his or her workstation. Both selections are fully supported and solely implemented by the respective downloaded definitions of the display view executing at the workstations without having to halt execution of the display view at the workstations, without having to download a different configuration of the display view to the workstations, and without the display views and/or the operator workstations obtaining data or other information from the configuration environment to implement the desired change.

It is noted that while the disclosure herein refers to graphical display views and graphical display view elements, this is for illustrative and ease of discussion purposes only, and is not meant to be limiting. Indeed, any one or more of the aspects discussed herein with respect to graphical display views may easily be applied to Graphical Element Module (GEM) classes, for example. Similarly, any one or more of the aspects discussed herein with respect to graphical display view elements may be easily applied to GEMs, for example. As is commonly known, GEMs are linked graphical configurable shapes that are reusable and that may be combined with other shapes and/or behaviors. Typically, GEMs provide one or more visual representations or views of a configurable shape, and the definition or configuration of a GEM is stored separately from definitions or configurations of usage/instances of that GEM in specific display views and other objects (e.g., to enable sharing the GEM definition/configuration). As such, the graphical configuration systems and methods described herein and any one or more aspects thereof may be easily applied to GEMs and GEM classes.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a block diagram of a distributed process control network located within a process plant including the graphics configuration and usage systems and methods of the present disclosure;

FIG. 1B is a block diagram of an example user interface device schematically illustrated in FIG. 1A;

FIG. 2A is a block diagram of an example implementation of a graphical display configuration and usage system in a configuration environment and in an operating environment of a process plant, such as the process plant of FIG. 1A;

FIG. 2B is a block diagram of an example implementation of the graphical configuration library included in the graphical configuration and usage of system of FIG. 2A;

FIG. 2C depicts a block diagram of an example snapshot in time of an in-progress configuring of a display view using the graphical configuration and usage system of FIG. 2A;

FIG. 3A is an example view of a graphical display configuration application for defining graphics and an example view of an operator application for presenting the graphics according to the definitions from the graphical display configuration application;

FIG. 3B is an example detailed view of a graphical display configuration application for defining graphics;

FIG. 4A illustrates an embodiment of a datalink display view element for creating a reference to a data source which may be provided by a graphical display configuration application;

FIG. 4B is a flow diagram of an example method for providing real-time data reference verification in a process control system;

FIGS. 5A-5B illustrate an embodiment for adding comments to a display view which may be provided by a graphical display configuration application;

FIG. 5C-5D illustrate embodiments which may be provided by a graphical display configuration application for indicating display views are ready for publishing or drafts in progress;

FIG. 6A illustrates an embodiment which may be provided by a graphical display configuration application for performing a local test on display views without publishing the display views to a graphical configuration database;

FIG. 6B is a flow diagram of an example method for performing a local test on display views in a process control system without publishing the display views to a graphical configuration database;

FIG. 7A is a flow diagram of an example method for assessing the completeness of a target graphical display view of a process control system;

FIG. 7B-7C illustrate example completeness assessments of target graphical display views of a process control system, which may be provided by a graphical display configuration application;

FIG. 7D illustrates an example complexity assessment of a target graphical display view of a process control system, which may be provided by a graphical display configuration application; and

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram of an example method for validating a draft configuration (or portion thereof) of a graphical display view of a process control system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1A is a block diagram of an exemplary process control network or system 2 operating in a process control system or process plant 10 with and/or in which embodiments of the novel graphical display configuration and usage system described herein may be utilized. The process control network or system 2 may include a network backbone 5 providing connectivity directly or indirectly between a variety of other devices. The devices coupled to the network backbone 5 include, in various embodiments, combinations of one or more access points 7 a, one or more gateways 7 b to other process plants (e.g., via an intranet or corporate wide area network), one or more gateways 7 c to external systems (e.g., to the Internet), one or more user interface (UI) devices 8 which may be stationary (e.g., a traditional operator workstation) or mobile computing devices (e.g., a mobile device smart-phone), one or more servers 12 (e.g., which may be implemented as a bank of servers, as a cloud computing system, or another suitable configuration), controllers 11, input/output (I/O) cards 26 and 28, wired field devices 15-22, wireless gateways 35, and wireless communication networks 70. The communication networks 70 may include wireless devices 40-58, which include wireless field devices 40-46, wireless adapters 52 a and 52 b, access points 55 a and 55 b, and a router 58. The wireless adapters 52 a and 52 b may be connected to non-wireless field devices 48 and 50, respectively. The controller 11 may include a processor 30, a memory 32, and one or more control routines 38. Though FIG. 1A depicts only a single one of some of the devices that are directly and/or communicatively connected to the network backbone 5, it will be understood that each of the devices could have multiple instances on the network backbone 5 and, in fact, that the process plant 10 may include multiple network backbones 5.

The UI devices 8 may be communicatively connected to the controller 11 and the wireless gateway 35 via the network backbone 5. The controller 11 may be communicatively connected to wired field devices 15-22 via input/output (I/O) cards 26 and 28 and may be communicatively connected to wireless field devices 40-46 via the network backbone 5 and a wireless gateway 35. The controller 11 may operate to implement a batch process or a continuous process using at least some of the field devices 15-22 and 40-50. The controller 11, which may be, by way of example, the DeltaV™ controller sold by Emerson, is communicatively connected to the process control network backbone 5. The controller 11 may be also communicatively connected to the field devices 15-22 and 40-50 using any desired hardware and software associated with, for example, standard 4-20 mA devices, I/O cards 26, 28, and/or any smart communication protocol such as the FOUNDATION® Fieldbus protocol, the HART® protocol, the Wireless HART® protocol, etc. In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1A, the controller 11, the field devices 15-22, 48, 50 and the I/O cards 26, 28 are wired devices, and the field devices 40-46 are wireless field devices.

In operation of the UI device 8, the UI device 8 may, in some embodiments, execute a user interface (“UI”), allowing the UI device 8 to accept input via an input interface and provide output at a display. The UI device 8 may receive data (e.g., process related data such as process parameters, log data, sensor data, and/or any other data that may be captured and stored), from the server 12. In other embodiments, the UI may be executed, in whole or in part, at the server 12, where the server 12 may transmit display data to the UI device 8. The UI device 8 may receive UI data (which may include display data and process parameter data) via the backbone 5 from other nodes in the process control network or system 2, such as the controller 11, the wireless gateway 35, and/or the server 12. Based on the UI data received at the UI device 8, the UI device 8 provides output (i.e., visual representations or graphics, some of which may be updated during run-time) representing aspects of the process associated with the process control network or system 2, allowing the user to monitor the process. The user may also affect control of the process by providing input at the UI device 8. To illustrate, the UI device 8 may provide graphics representing, for example, a tank filling process. In such a scenario, the user may read a tank level measurement and decide that the tank needs to be filled. The user may interact with an inlet valve graphic displayed at the UI device 8 and input a command causing the inlet valve to open.

In certain embodiments, the UI device 8 may implement any type of client, such as a thin client, web client, or thick client. For example, the UI device 8 may depend on other nodes, computers, UI devices, or servers for the bulk of the processing necessary for operation of the UI device 8, as might be the case if the UI device is limited in memory, battery power, etc. (e.g., in a wearable device). In such an example, the UI device 8 may communicate with the server 12 or with another UI device, where the server 12 or other UI device may communicate with one or more other nodes (e.g., servers) on the process control network or system 2 and may determine the display data and/or process data to transmit to the UI device 8. Furthermore, the UI device 8 may pass any data related to received user input to the server 12 so that the server 12 may process the data related to user input and operate accordingly. In other words, the UI device 8 may do little more than render graphics and act as a portal to one or more nodes or servers that store the data and execute the routines necessary for operation of the UI device 8. A thin client UI device offers the advantage of minimal hardware requirements for the UI device 8.

In other embodiments, the UI device 8 may be a web client. In such an embodiment, a user of the UI device 8 may interact with the process control system via a browser at the UI device 8. The browser enables the user to access data and resources at another node or server 12 (such as the server 12) via the backbone 5. For example, the browser may receive UI data, such as display data or process parameter data, from the server 12, allowing the browser to depict graphics for controlling and/or monitoring some or all of the process. The browser may also receive user input (such as a mouse click on a graphic). The user input may cause the browser to retrieve or access an information resource stored on the server 12. For example, the mouse click may cause the browser to retrieve (from the server 12) and display information pertaining to the clicked graphic.

In yet other embodiments, the bulk of the processing for the UI device 8 may take place at the UI device 8. For example, the UI device 8 may execute the previously discussed UI. The UI device 8 may also store, access, and analyze data locally.

In operation, a user may interact with the UI device 8 to monitor or control one or more devices in the process control network or system 2, such as any of the field devices 15-22 or the devices 40-50. The user may interact with the UI device 8, for example, to modify or change a parameter associated with a control routine stored in the controller 11. The processor 30 of the controller 11 implements or oversees one or more process control routines (stored in a memory 32), which may include control loops. The processor 30 may communicate with the field devices 15-22 and 40-50 and with other nodes that are communicatively connected to the backbone 5. It should be noted that any control routines or modules (including quality prediction and fault detection modules or function blocks) described herein may have parts thereof implemented or executed by different controllers or other devices if so desired. Likewise, the control routines or modules described herein which are to be implemented within the process control system may take any form, including software, firmware, hardware, etc. Control routines may be implemented in any desired software format, such as using object oriented programming, ladder logic, sequential function charts, function block diagrams, or using any other software programming language or design paradigm. In particular, the control routines may be defined and implemented by a user through the UI device 8. The control routines may be stored in any desired type of memory, such as random access memory (RAM), or read only memory (ROM) of the controller 11. Likewise, the control routines may be hard-coded into, for example, one or more EPROMs, EEPROMs, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or any other hardware or firmware elements of the controller 11. Thus, the controller 11 may be configured (by a user using a UI device 8 in certain embodiments) to implement (e.g., receive, store, and/or execute) a control strategy or control routine in any desired manner.

In some embodiments of the UI device 8, a user may interact with the UI device 8 to define and implement a control strategy at the controller 11 using what are commonly referred to as function blocks, wherein each function block is an object or other part (e.g., a subroutine) of an overall control routine and operates in conjunction with other function blocks (via communications called links) to implement process control loops within the process control system. Control based function blocks typically perform one of an input function, such as that associated with a transmitter, a sensor or other process parameter measurement device; a control function, such as that associated with a control routine that performs PID, fuzzy logic, etc. control; or an output function which controls the operation of some device, such as a valve, to perform some physical function within the process control system. Of course, hybrid and other types of function blocks exist. The function blocks may have graphical representations that are provided at the UI device 8, allowing a user to easily modify the types of function blocks, the connections between the function blocks, and the inputs/outputs associated with each of function blocks implemented in the process control system. Function blocks may be downloaded to, stored in, and executed by the controller 11, which is typically the case when these function blocks are used for, or are associated with standard 4-20 mA devices and some types of smart field devices such as HART devices, or may be stored in and implemented by the field devices themselves, which can be the case with Fieldbus devices. The controller 11 may include one or more control routines 38 that may implement one or more control loops. Each control loop is typically referred to as a control module, and may be performed by executing one or more of the function blocks.

Referring still to FIG. 1A, the wireless field devices 40-46 communicate in a wireless network 70 using a wireless protocol, such as the Wireless HART protocol. In certain embodiments, the UI device 8 may be capable of communicating with the wireless field devices 40-46 using the wireless network 70. Such wireless field devices 40-46 may directly communicate with one or more other nodes of the process control network or system 2 that are also configured to communicate wirelessly (using the wireless protocol, for example). To communicate with one or more other nodes that are not configured to communicate wirelessly, the wireless field devices 40-46 may utilize a wireless gateway 35 connected to the backbone 5. Of course, the field devices 15-22 and 40-46 could conform to any other desired standard(s) or protocols, such as any wired or wireless protocols, including any standards or protocols developed in the future.

The wireless gateway 35 may provide access to various wireless devices or nodes 40-46, 52-58 of a wireless communication network 70. In particular, the wireless gateway 35 provides communicative coupling between the wireless devices 40-46, 52-58 and other nodes of the process control network or system 2 (including the controller 11 of FIG. 1A). The wireless gateway 35 provides communicative coupling, in some cases, by the routing, buffering, and timing services to lower layers of the wired and wireless protocol stacks (e.g., address conversion, routing, packet segmentation, prioritization, etc.) while tunneling a shared layer or layers of the wired and wireless protocol stacks, in an example implementation. In other cases, the wireless gateway 35 may translate commands between wired and wireless protocols that do not share any protocol layers.

Similar to the wired field devices 15-22, the wireless field devices 40-46 of the wireless network 70 may perform physical control functions within the process plant 10, e.g., opening or closing valves or take measurements of process parameters. The wireless field devices 40-46, however, are configured to communicate using the wireless protocol of the network 70. As such, the wireless field devices 40-46, the wireless gateway 35, and other wireless nodes 52-58 of the wireless network 70 are producers and consumers of wireless communication packets.

In some scenarios, the wireless network 70 may include non-wireless devices 48, 50, which may be wired devices. For example, a field device 48 of FIG. 1A may be a legacy 4-20 mA device and a field device 50 may be a traditional wired HART device. To communicate within the network 70, the field devices 48 and 50 may be connected to the wireless communication network 70 via a respective wireless adaptor (WA) 52 a, 52 b. Additionally, the wireless adaptors 52 a, 52 b may support other communication protocols such as Foundation® Fieldbus, PROFIBUS, DeviceNet, etc. Furthermore, the wireless network 70 may include one or more network access points 55 a, 55 b, which may be separate physical devices in wired communication with the wireless gateway 35 or may be provided with the wireless gateway 35 as an integral device. The wireless network 70 may also include one or more routers 58 to forward packets from one wireless device to another wireless device within the wireless communication network 70. The wireless devices 40-46 and 52-58 may communicate with each other and with the wireless gateway 35 over wireless links 60 of the wireless communication network 70.

In certain embodiments, the process control network or system 2 may include other nodes connected to the network backbone 5 that communicate using other wireless protocols. For example, the process control network or system 2 may include one or more wireless access points 7 a that utilize other wireless protocols, such as WiFi or other IEEE 802.11 compliant wireless local area network protocols, mobile communication protocols such as WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), LTE (Long Term Evolution) or other ITU-R (International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector) compatible protocols, short-wavelength radio communications such as near field communications (NFC) and Bluetooth, and/or other wireless communication protocols. Typically, such wireless access points 7 a allow handheld or other portable computing devices to communicate over a respective wireless network that is different from the wireless network 70 and that supports a different wireless protocol than the wireless network 70. In some embodiments, the UI device 8 communicates over the process control network or system 2 using a wireless access point 7 a. In some scenarios, in addition to portable computing devices, one or more process control devices (e.g., controller 11, field devices 15-22, or wireless devices 35, 40-46, 52-58) may also communicate using the wireless network supported by the access points 7 a.

Additionally or alternatively, the process control network or system 2 may include one or more gateways 7 b, 7 c to systems that are external to the immediate process control system. In such embodiments, the UI device 8 may be used to control, monitor, or otherwise communicate with said external systems. Typically, such systems are customers and/or suppliers of information generated or operated on by the process control system. For example, a plant gateway node 7 b may communicatively connect the immediate process plant 10 (having its own respective process control data network backbone 5) with another process plant having its own respective network backbone. In an embodiment, a single network backbone 5 may service multiple process plants or process control environments.

In another example, the plant gateway node 7 b may communicatively connect the immediate process plant to a legacy or prior art process plant that does not include a process control network or system 2 or backbone 5. In this example, the plant gateway node 7 b may convert or translate messages between a protocol utilized by the process control big data backbone 5 of the plant 10 and a different protocol utilized by the legacy system (e.g., Ethernet, Profibus, Fieldbus, DeviceNet, etc.). In such an example, the UI device 8 may be used to control, monitor, or otherwise communicate with systems or networks in said legacy or prior art process plant.

The process control network or system 2 may include one or more external system gateway nodes 7 c to communicatively connect the process control network or system 2 with the network of an external public or private system, such as a laboratory system (e.g., Laboratory Information Management System or LIMS), a personnel rounds database, a materials handling system, a maintenance management system, a product inventory control system, a production scheduling system, a weather data system, a shipping and handling system, a packaging system, the Internet, another provider's process control system, and/or other external systems. The external system gateway nodes 7 c may, for example, facilitate communication between the process control system and personnel outside of the process plant (e.g., personnel at home).

Although FIG. 1A illustrates a single controller 11 with a finite number of field devices 15-22, 40-46, and 48-50 communicatively connected thereto, this is only an illustrative and a non-limiting embodiment. Any number of controllers 11 may be included in the process control network or system 2, and any of the controllers 11 may communicate with any number of wired or wireless field devices 15-22, 40-50 to control a process in the plant 10. Furthermore, the process plant 10 may also include any number of wireless gateways 35, routers 58, access points 55, wireless process control communication networks 70, access points 7 a, and/or gateways 7 b, 7 c.

FIG. 1B illustrates a block diagram of an example UI device 8 which may be utilized in conjunction with embodiments of the novel graphical display configuration and usage system described herein. The UI device 8 may be a desktop computer such as a traditional operator workstation, a control room display, or a mobile computing device such as a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a mobile device smart-phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a wearable computing device, or any other suitable client computing device. The UI device 8 may execute a graphical display configuration application utilized by a configuration engineer in the configuration environment to create, generate, and/or edit various display view definitions or configurations as well as create, generate, and/or edit various display view element definitions or configurations. The UI device 8 may also execute an operator application utilized by an operator to monitor, observe, and react to various statuses and conditions of the process within the operating environment. The UI device 8 may include a display 72. Further, the UI device 8 includes one or more processors or CPUs 75, a memory 78, a random-access memory (RAM) 80, an input/output (I/O) circuit 82, and a communication unit 85 to transmit and receive data via a local area network, wide area network, and/or any other suitable network, which may be wired and/or wireless. The UI device 8 may communicate with the controllers 11, the server 12, and/or any other suitable computing device.

The memory 78 may include an operating system 88, applications running on the operating system 88 such as the graphical display configuration application and operator application, and a control unit 90 for controlling the display 72 and communicating with the controllers 11 to control on-line operation of the process plant. In some embodiments, the server 12 may transmit a graphical representation of a portion of the process plant to the UI device 8 and in turn, the control unit 90 may cause the graphical representation of the portion of the process plant to be presented on the display 72. Additionally, the control unit 90 may obtain user input from the I/O circuit 82, such as user input from the operator or configuration engineer (also referred to herein as a user) and translate the user input into a request to present a graphical display view in a particular language, a request to include graphics that are indicative of particular control elements in an Active Monitor or Watch window included on the display view, a request to display an adjustment to a process parameter included in one of the process sections, etc.

In some embodiments, the control unit 90 may communicate the translated user input to the server 12 which may generate and transmit the requested UI to the UI device 8 for display. In other embodiments, the control unit 90 may generate the new UI based on the translated user input and present the new UI on the display 72 of the UI device 8. When the translated user input is a request to display an adjustment to a process parameter included in one of the process sections, the control unit 90 may adjust the process parameter value on the display 72 in accordance with the user input from the operator and may provide instructions to the controllers 11 to adjust the process parameter in the process plant. In other embodiments, the control unit 90 may communicate the translated user input to the server 12 which may generate and transmit the adjusted process parameter value to the UI device 8 for display, and provide instructions to the controllers 11 to adjust the process parameter in the process plant.

FIG. 2A depicts a high-level block diagram illustrating one possible manner of implementing embodiments and/or aspects of the graphical display configuration and usage system 100 described herein within a configuration environment 102 and an operating or operations environment 105 of a process plant or process control system, e.g., of the process plant 10 of FIG. 1A. The configuration environment 102 of the process control system is interchangeably referred to herein as the “off-line” environment 102 or the “back-end” environment 102 of the process control system, and the operating environment 105 of the process control system is interchangeably referred to herein as the “operations,” “on-line,” “front-end,” or “field” environment 105 of the process control system.

As illustrated in FIG. 2A, the configuration environment 102 includes a graphical display configuration application 110 that includes a user interface via which a configuration engineer or user may create, generate, and/or edit various display view definitions or configurations 112 as well as create, generate, and/or edit various display view element definitions or configurations 115. For example, the graphical display configuration application 110 may execute on an instance of the user device 8 of FIGS. 1A and/or 1B. Each display view configuration 112 and each display view element configuration 115 may be implemented as a respective object, for example. Generally speaking, a display view definition 112 may be configured to include (among other components) one or more display element definitions 115. Typically, a display view definition 112 is configured to include at least one display element (e.g., a graphical element) that is linked to a particular control module, device, or other type of control object so that in the operating environment 105, runtime data associated with the particular control module, device, or control object may be represented via the linked display element(s) on the executing display view, e.g., in a continually or repeatedly updated manner. The particular control module, device, or control object typically is defined in a control configuration database 118 (e.g., its configuration is stored in the control configuration database 118), and may be represented within the display view definition 112 by a designated control tag or other suitable indicator, for example. As shown in FIG. 2A, the display view-related definitions or configurations 112, 115 are stored in a centralized graphical configuration database or library 120 so that the graphical display-related configurations 112, 115 are available for download and execution in the operating environment 105 to thereby allow operators or users to monitor, observe, and react to various statuses and conditions of the process within the operating environment 105. It is noted that although the graphical configuration database 120 and the control configuration database 118 are illustrated in FIG. 2A as being separate databases within the configuration environment 102 of the process control system 10, in some implementations, at least portions or the entireties of the configuration databases 120, 118 may be integrally implemented as a unitary database or library.

At any rate, in FIG. 2A, a display view configuration 112 may be defined to specify one or more control objects 118 that are associated with or bound to respective display view elements 115 included on the display view 112, and then the definitions of the display view elements 115 and the control objects 118 respectively bound thereto are instantiated and provided to (e.g., are downloaded into) one or more different operator workstations or user interface devices 122 included in the operating environment 105 of the process plant 10. In an example, the user interface device or workstation 122 may take the form of the user interface device 8 of FIG. 1B. The instantiated display view 112 executing at the user interface device 122 communicates with the control module runtime environment 125, which may be executed in controllers and field devices associated with the process, to access or otherwise obtain data or other information from the control module runtime environment 125, e.g., as defined by the bound control objects 118 of the display view 112. The user interface device 122 may communicate with the control module runtime environment 125 using any desired or preconfigured communication networks, such as the data highway 5 and/or the wireless communication networks 70 of FIG. 1A.

In some embodiments, user interface device 122 uses a download script parser 128 to parse at least some of the downloaded display view configuration 112 during its execution (e.g., to perform just in time object code conversion), although use of the download script parser 128 by the user interface device 122 is not necessary or required, e.g., when a downloaded display view configuration 112 does not include any scripts.

In some embodiments, the user interface device 122 uses a rule-based execution engine 130 to execute process flow algorithms or other rule based procedures (e.g., as provided by a process flow runtime environment 132) that are indicated by or bound to the display view element objects 115 and/or to the display view object 112, such as when one or more of the display view element objects 115 is a smart process object. Generally speaking, a smart process object is defined or configured to include data storage for storing data pertaining to and received from other entities within the process plant 10, as well as inputs and outputs for communicating with other smart process objects and methods that may be executed on the stored and received data, e.g., to detect plant or device conditions. In some arrangements, smart process objects are communicatively connected together to create a process flow module that provides a display view for, and implement a set of rules for a plant entity, such as an area, device, element, module, etc., and the process flow module is executed in the runtime by the process flow runtime environment 132, e.g., by using the execution engine 130. It is noted that the use of the execution engine 130 by the user interface device 122 is not necessary or required, e.g., when a downloaded display view configuration 112 does not include any smart process objects. It is further noted that other methods of integrating the display views and display view elements with runtime control objects in the operating environment 105 other than those discussed herein are additionally or alternatively possible, and may be utilized by the graphical display configuration and usage system 100. For ease of discussion, an instantiated display view that executes or is provided on a user interface device 122 of the operating environment 105 is generally referred to herein as an operator or operations application 135.

FIG. 2B depicts a detailed block diagram of an embodiment of the graphical configuration library 120 included in the graphical display configuration and usage system 100 of FIG. 2A. As illustrated in FIG. 2B, the graphical configuration library 120 stores both display view definitions or configurations 112 as well as display view element definitions or configurations 115. Each definition or configuration 112, 115 may have associated therewith a published version and optionally one or more draft versions (which are also referred to herein interchangeably as “in-progress” or “working” versions) which are stored in the library 120. As shown in FIG. 2B, View1 has two corresponding draft configurations and one corresponding published configuration stored in the graphical configuration database 120. Additionally, the graphical configuration database 120 is shown as storing one draft configuration and two published configurations for View2, one published configuration and no draft configurations for View3, and m draft configurations and one published configuration for ViewN. Generally speaking, only published configurations or definitions are allowed or permitted to be downloaded from the graphical configuration library 120 or elsewhere within the configuration environment 102 into the operating environment 105. Draft configurations or definitions may be maintained, stored, and edited solely within the configuration environment 102, in some embodiments. If draft configurations or definitions are stored within the configuration environment 102, the drafts are prevented from being downloaded into the operating environment 105. When a configuration engineer is satisfied with a draft display-related configuration or definition 112, 115, the engineer may explicitly publish the display-related configuration or definition 112, 115 (e.g., change its state to “published”) so that it is available for download and execution in the runtime process plant 10. In some embodiments, a single user control may implement both the publishing and the subsequent download of the publication. In other embodiments, a publish user control or command and a download user control or command are different and distinct user controls provided by the configuration application 110.

As such, multiple configuration engineers are able to create, modify, and test graphical configurations and definitions (and in some situations, simultaneously) without impacting runtime operations of the subject configurations, e.g., as illustrated by the m draft configurations of ViewN and the published configuration of the ViewN. Additionally, different versions of a same display view may be published and available for runtime operations, for example, when a same display view is configured to have different combinations of operator customizations that are downloaded to different areas of the plant, e.g., as illustrated by the two publications of View2. (Of course, the graphical display configuration system 100 allows configuration engineers to re-name different publications of View2 as separate views instead of different publications of the same view, if so desired.) In some embodiments, at least some of the published display views and published display view elements are available out-of-the-box, that is, at least some published display views and published display view elements are provided as defaults in the library 120. Such default views and elements may be edited or modified by configuration engineers using the graphical display configuration application 110, and the modified views or elements may be published as additional or alternative published versions of the default objects 112, 115.

A particular display view configuration may be defined, e.g., by configuration engineers or users via the graphical display configuration application 110, to include (e.g., refer to, point to, or reference) one or more display view element configurations, among other components. Similarly, in some instances, a particular display view element configuration may be defined to include (e.g., refer to, point to, or reference) one or more other display view elements. Significantly, various display-related configurations or definitions (whether of display views and/or of display view elements) may respectively define a set of operator-selectable customizations that are made available for the operator to modify the appearance of the corresponding display view or display view element during runtime as the operator desires, without having to create and/or download a revised configuration, and without the display view, the display view element, or the user interface device on which the display view is executing having to obtain additional configuration data indicative of the modification from another computing device (e.g., from a computing device or database included in the configuration environment 102, or from a computing device or database included in the operating environment 102 that locally stores configuration data or copies thereof). Additionally, in some embodiments, the particular display view configuration may also include one or more global variables or scripts in addition to the other display view elements referenced therein.

To illustrate, FIG. 2C depicts a snap shot of an example display view 150 that is being configured by a user on a canvas provided by the graphical display configuration application 110. At this point during its configuration, the display view 150 has been defined as including several display view elements 152 a-168 a. In particular, the display view 150 includes a tabbed display element 152 a including four tabs 152 a-1, 152 a-2, 152 a-3, and 152 a-4, and the tab 152 a-1 includes a graphic of a tank 155 a including an input flow connection 158 a and an output flow connection 160 a. Additionally, the tank graphic 155 a includes a fill animation 162 a via which the liquid level in the tank is represented. The presentation of the display view 150 may be at least partially influenced by one or more user controls included thereon, e.g., a language user control 165 a and a theme user control 168 a, which are able to be manipulated by an operator for customization at his or her workstation or user interface 8. Additionally or alternatively, one or more similar user controls 165 a, 168 a may be provided at the workstation or user interface 8 via the operator application 135 executing the display view 150 at the workstation 8 (not shown in FIG. 2C).

The configuration of the example display view 150 is captured or defined in a corresponding display view object 172 a which, in FIG. 2C, is a draft, working, or in-progress configuration object 172 a (or otherwise not published). Similarly, the configuration of each of the display view element 152 a-168 a is captured or defined in one or more respective display view element objects 152 b-170 b (each of which, at the point in time illustrated by FIG. 2C, may or may not be respectively published, either individually, or as a whole with the display view 150). For example, the tabs 152 a-1, 152 a-2, 152 a-3, and 152 a-4 are defined by a graphical tab display element 152 a, which itself is defined by an instance of the tab object 152 b, where each tab object instance has been specifically configured to, for example, display a different text string on its respective tabs 152 a-1, 152 a-2, 152 a-3, and 152 a-4 and to include other display characteristics and properties thereon (not shown). In some embodiments, each tab 152 a-1, 152 a-2, 152 a-3, and 152 a-4 may be respectively configured to change its appearance (e.g., indicators, background color, text color, animations, etc.) responsive to live data, and thereby may be linked to one or more control elements within the operating environment 105 of the process plant 10. The tank graphic 155 a is defined by an instance of the tank object 155 b, and the tank object instance has been specifically configured to be associated with a specific control tag LT123. Additionally, the fill animation 162 a has been defined by an instance of the fill animation object 162 b which specifies that the fill animation is a bottom-to-top fill. Further, the color of the fill animation 162 a is defined by an instance of a fill color object 170 b to be operator-selectable between the colors blue, red, white, and green. For example, the fill color may be individually selectable, or may be selectable by virtue of the operator selecting a particular theme which defines the fill color.

Moreover, as demonstrated in FIG. 2C, configurations of graphical object instances may be defined using other graphical objects and/or object instances. For example, the instance of the tab object 152 b that defines the tab 152 a-1 is defined to include the instance of the tank graphic object 155 b that defines the tank graphic 155 a (including, inter alia, the specification therein of the control tag LT123) thereon. Similarly, the instance of the tank graphic object 155 b that defines the tank graphic 155 a is itself defined to include the instance of the fill animation object 162 b for the fill animation 162 a, where the instance of the fill animation object 162 b has been particularly configured in this example to be a bottom-to-top fill animation. Still, the instance of the fill animation object 162 b defining the fill animation 162 a is itself defined to include an instance of the fill color object 170 b, which defines therein a choice of operator-selectable fill colors (e.g., blue, red, white, and green) and additionally defines the mutually exclusive selection and application thereof.

Generally speaking, a first graphical element object may be defined or configured to refer to (e.g., point to, reference, etc.) a second graphical element object, where the configuration of the second graphical element object defines the appearances and/or behaviors of the first graphical element object. In some embodiments, the configuration or the definition of the first graphical element object may additionally include one or more object property values and/or scripts, if desired. The first graphical element object and the second graphical element object are independent and separate objects. That is, the first graphical element object and the second graphical element object are not included in the same object class, are not derived from each other, are not related by parent/child object relationships, etc. Indeed, the second graphical element object may be referenced by another graphical element object and appropriately configured to thereby define the appearances and/or behaviors of the another graphical element object.

In some scenarios, the second graphical element object itself may reference a third graphical element object, where the configuration of the third graphical element object defines the appearances and/or behaviors of the second graphical element object. If desired, the configuration of the second graphical element object may additionally include one or more object property values and/or scripts.

At any rate, turning back to FIG. 2C, the instance of the display view object 172 a defining the view 150 may be configured to display one or more user controls 165 a, 168 a thereon. (As noted above, in some embodiments, one or more of the user controls 165 a, 168 a may be provided by the operator application 135 that executes the configured display view object 172 a at the user interface device 8 within the operating environment 105, which is not depicted in FIG. 2C.) At any rate, whether provided by the display view object 172 a and/or by the operator application 135, each of the user controls 165 a, 168 a may be defined, at least in part, by its respective object 165 b, 168 b. In particular, as illustrated in FIG. 2C, the language user control 165 a is defined by an instance of the multi-language object 165 b which, in this example, has been configured to enable text to be represented in either English, Arabic, or French. As such, during runtime, an operator may manipulate the language user control 165 a to selectively change the language that appears in the display view 150 to/from English, Arabic, or French. Similarly, the themes user control 168 a is defined by an instance of the themes object 168 b, where the instance of the themes 168 b, in this example, has been defined to allow the operator, during runtime, to selectively change the theme of the display view 150 among Theme1, Theme2, and Theme3. As such, during runtime, an operator may manipulate the themes user control 168 a on the operator application 135 to change the theme that appears in the display view 150 among Theme1, Theme2, and Theme3. Each of the languages and themes may be defined elsewhere in the graphical configuration database 120, e.g., in the manners described elsewhere in this disclosure.

Further, the display view 150 may be able to be included in various other display view elements 115. For example, a particular Layout1 (e.g., which may be configured as a particular instance of a layout object) may be defined to present the display view 150 in a first area, e.g., by linking the configuration 172 a of the display view 150 to the graphical object defining the first area of Layout1. Another particular Layout2 (e.g., which may be configured as another particular instance of the layout object) may be defined to present the display view 150 in a second area, e.g., by linking the display view configuration 170 to the graphical object defining the second area of Layout2. In an additional or alternative implementation, the instance of the display view object 172 a may reference one or several layouts (e.g., which may be configured as particular instances of layout objects) that include the display view 150. Each of the layouts that include the display view 150 may be particularly configured to be or to not be presented to the operator when presenting the display view 150 while executing in the runtime environment. In other words, while executing in the runtime environment, the operator application 135 may present the display view 150 according to one of the layouts based on the configuration of the display view object 172 a. Additional discussion of layouts that are able to be provided by the graphical display configuration system 100 is provided elsewhere in this disclosure. Similarly, the display view 150 may be linked or otherwise associated with various display hierarchies, and additional discussion of display hierarchies that are provided by the graphical display configuration system 100 is also provided elsewhere in this disclosure.

Returning to FIG. 2C, when the configuration engineer is satisfied with the display view object 172 a that defines the content, appearances, and behaviors of the display view 150 in the runtime environment 105, the configuration engineer may publish the display view object as represented in FIG. 2C by the reference 172 b.

In an embodiment in which display view elements objects are able to be individually published, upon publication of the display view object 172 b, any display view element objects 152 b-170 b that are not already in a published state may be automatically published, and/or the user may be prompted to manually publish display view element objects that are still in a draft or in-progress state. That is, in such an embodiment, in order for a display view object 172 a to be published, any display element objects included therein or linked thereto must also be in a published state.

In another embodiment in which display view element objects are not individually publishable, upon publication of the display view object 172 b, the published configuration 172 b of the display view 150 is stored in the graphical configuration database 120, thereby making the published configuration 172 b available for download into the operating environment 105 of the process plant 10, such as is shown in FIG. 2C. In some embodiments, upon publication of the display view object 172, the published configuration 172 b is automatically downloaded into the operating environment 105.

The published configuration of the display view object 172 b may be downloaded to one or more user interface devices that are included in the operating environment 105 for execution, as represented in FIG. 2C by user interface devices UI-1, UI-2, UI-3. Each of the user interface devices UI-1, UI-2, UI-3 may take the form of the user interface device 8 or the user interface device 122, for example, and the particular set of user interface devices to which the published display view configuration 172 b is to be downloaded (and executed on) may be specified by a user, e.g., via the graphical display configuration application 110 or via another user interface of the configuration environment 120. As such, each downloaded instance of the published display view configuration 172 b may execute independently in the runtime environment 105 at its respective host user interface device UI-1, UI-2, UI-3.

Importantly, the published display view configuration 172 b, when executing at its host device UI-1, UI-2, UI-3, allows operators or users to customize the appearance and behaviors of a respective executing display view 150 as desired within the runtime environment 105, and independently of the runtime customization of other users. As shown in FIG. 2C, at UI-1, the user of UI-1 has changed the color of the fill animation 162 a of the tank graphic 155 on the display view 150 to be blue, has selected that the text displayed on the display view 150 be presented in French, and has selected that the display view 150 be presented using Theme3. At UI-2, the user has changed the color of the fill animation 162 a to be white, has selected the text to be presented in Arabic, and has selected Theme1. At UI-3, the user has changed the color of the fill animation 162 a to be red, has selected the text to be presented in English, and has selected Theme2. The user selections and customizations implemented at user interface devices UI-1, UI-2, and UI-3 are effected solely using the respective published display view configurations 172 b executing respectively at the host devices UI-1, UI-2, and UI-3. That is, to implement the operator-desired changes, none of UI-1, UI-2, or UI-3 needs to obtain additional configuration data from the configuration environment or from any other computing device. Moreover, to implement the operator-desired changes, an updated configuration for the display view 150 is not required to be downloaded and executed. Rather, each operator simply implements desired changes in line with the runtime execution of the display view 150 at his or her respective user interface device UI-1, UI-2, UI-3, e.g., without needing to stop and re-start the display view 150. For example, if the user of UI-I subsequently wishes to change the displayed theme from Theme3 to Theme2, the user may do so by merely making the selection via the Theme User Control 168 a executing at UI-1 (which may, as discussed above be provided by the operator application 135 or by the display view 150), and in response the executing display view 150 will implement the change, e.g., without having to communicate with any other computing device included in the configuration environment 102 and/or with any other computing device that is able to access configuration data 120 or copies thereof.

Of course, the example scenario depicted in FIG. 2C is meant to be illustrative but not limiting, and is only one of many possible usage scenarios of the graphical display configuration and usage system 100. Indeed, as is demonstrated within this disclosure, the graphical display configuration and usage system 100 provides a configuration environment 102 that is flexible, intuitive, and easy to maintain, while simultaneously providing an operating experience that supports independent, on-line operator customization of display views and/or of display elements included thereon. The various features and aspects (either alone, or in combination) of the graphical display configuration and usage system 100 which provide these and other benefits are described in more detail below.

Display Navigational Hierarchy

Turning now to FIG. 3A, examples of types of display view elements that are provided by the graphical display configuration and usage systems and methods described herein are a hierarchy display view element and a layout display view element. As mentioned above, to generate graphics in a process control system, the graphical display configuration application 110 in the configuration environment 102 includes graphical user controls for defining hierarchies and layouts, thereby allowing a configuration engineer to define the hierarchy and layout graphically. Each display view may be made up of display view elements which define the display view. For example, a “Main-Tanks” display view may include several display view elements each representing a different tank. A display view element in one display view may also be the subject of another display view at a higher level of detail having its own display view elements. In this manner, a plant operator may navigate from a display view depicting a general overview of the process plant at the lowest level of detail to a display view depicting a single alarm or device within the process plant at one of the highest levels of detail.

In some embodiments, a display view depicts a section of a process plant and the display view elements include graphical representations of process plant entities, such as tanks, mixers, valves, pumps, and/or any other suitable equipment within a process plant. The display view elements may also include graphical representations of process plant connection entities that connect one piece of equipment to another, such as pipes, electrical wires, conveyor belts, etc.

In some embodiments, the configuration engineer may define the alarms, trends, and/or process parameter values within a display view at a particular level of detail. In other embodiments, the configuration engineer may define the number of alarms, trends, and/or process parameter values within the display view at a particular level of detail. The graphical display configuration application 110 or the operator or operations application 135 executing on the operator user interface device 122 may then automatically determine which alarms, trends, and/or process parameter values to include on the display view based on priority levels for the respective alarms, trends, and/or process parameter values. For example, the configuration engineer may indicate that five process parameter values will be presented at particular locations within the display view. Each of the process parameter values corresponding to the display view may be ranked according to priority level and the top five ranking process parameter values may be presented in the display view. The priority levels may be determined by the configuration engineer, the operator, or may be automatically determined based on a set of rules, such as whether a particular process parameter value triggers an alarm.

To create a hierarchy of display views for navigating from a display view depicting a general overview of the process plant to display views depicting sections of the process plant at higher levels of detail, the graphical display configuration application 110 includes graphical user controls for defining relationships or links between display views. The graphical display configuration application 110 may present a user interface or a portion thereof for creating the hierarchy. The hierarchy UI may include indications of each of the display views defined in the configuration environment. The configuration engineer may then drag and drop display views (or may use any other suitable graphical user control) into a hierarchy pane to define the relationships or links between the display views. For example, by dragging and dropping an indication of a “Tank 1” display view (e.g., the name “Tank 1,” an icon, etc.) onto an indication of a “Main-Tanks” display view, the graphical display configuration application 110 may determine that Tank 1 is a subview at a higher level of detail than the “Main-Tanks” display view. In another example, by dragging and dropping an indication of a “Tank-Feed” display view above or below the indication of the “Main-Tanks” display view within the hierarchy pane, the graphical display configuration application 110 may determine that the “Tank-Feed” and “Main-Tanks” display views are at the same level of detail within the hierarchy.

Display view hierarchies may also be created for trend display views representing historized process parameter values. For example, a process parameter such a flow rate through a valve may depend on one or several input or output process parameters, such as an inlet pressure at the valve and an outlet pressure at the valve. A Level 1 trend display view may depict flow rates through the valve over time while a Level 2 trend display subview of the Level 1 trend display view may depict inlet and outlet pressures at the valve over time. The configuration engineer may create the trend display view hierarchy in the configuration environment 102, and an operator may maneuver between resulting trend display views and subviews (e.g., via navigation buttons) within the operating environment 105 at increasing or decreasing levels of detail.

In some embodiments, a display view hierarchy may resemble a tree structure where a display view at the lowest level of detail (e.g., Level 1) is the root node of the tree structure. Display views at the second lowest level of detail (e.g., Level 2) may be children nodes with respect to the root node and may each have their own children nodes at the third lowest level of detail (e.g., Level 3) which may be grandchildren nodes with respect to the root node. The configuration engineer may create several display view hierarchies which may each correspond to different areas within a process plant or different process plants. In this manner, each operator may view the display view hierarchy representing the area for which she is responsible.

In addition to defining display view hierarchies, the graphical display configuration application 110 includes graphical user controls for defining a layout. As used herein, a “layout” may indicate the manner in which to divide a display screen area of an operator workstation to present several display views on a display screen or a plurality of display screens for the operator workstation. For example, an operator workstation may include multiple monitors or display screens and the layout may cause the operator workstation to present a different display view on each of the display screens, so that the operator may watch several display views at a time. In another example, an operator workstation may include a single monitor or display screen and the layout may cause the operator workstation to divide the display screen into several regions (e.g., frames, sub-areas, or portions) and present a different display view on each region of the display screen. The graphical display configuration application 110 may include graphical user controls for selecting the number of display screens and display regions within each display screen for a layout. For example, the configuration engineer may generate a first layout having two display screens, where each display screen is divided into two display regions. Then the configuration engineer may define a display view type for each of the divided display regions, such as watch area, alarm list, historized parameters, a faceplate, hierarchy level (e.g., Level 1, Level 2, Level 3), etc.

Furthermore, the layout may include relationships or links between the display regions within the layout. For example, a first display region within the layout may present hierarchy Level 1 type display views and a second display region within the layout may present hierarchy Level 2 type display views. The second display region may be configured to present hierarchy Level 2 display views when the operator navigates from hierarchy Level 1 in the first display region. The display view for the second display region depends on the activity of the operator with respect to the first display region and the first display region continues to present hierarchy Level 1 type display views. In another example, display regions within the layout depicting alarm list or historized parameter display views may depend on display regions within the layout depicting control modules, so that the alarm list or historized parameter display views include alarms or parameters being displayed within the control modules.

FIG. 3A illustrates, an example side-by-side view 300 of a graphical display configuration application UI 302 (which may, for example, be an instance of the graphical display configuration application 110) and an operator application UI 304 (which may, for example, be an instance of the operator application 135) depicting the display view elements during runtime as defined by the graphical display configuration application UI 302. More specifically, the graphical display configuration application UI 302 includes a hierarchy pane 310 indicating the hierarchy of a set of display views. For example, the “Tanks-Ovw” display view may be at Level 1 of the display view hierarchy and the “Tank-Feed” and “Main-Tanks” display views may be at Level 2. The “FeedHt X” and “FeedMixr” display views may be subviews of the “Tank-Feed” display view and the “Tank1,” “Tank2,” and “Surge” display views may be subviews of the “Main-Tanks” display view at Level 3. Additionally, the “T2SOP” display view may be a subview of the “Tank 2” display view at Level 4. As mentioned above, a configuration engineer may define the display view hierarchy by dragging and dropping indications of the display views into a hierarchy pane 310 presented by the graphical display configuration application 110 or by using any other suitable graphical user controls. Indications of new display views may also be defined in the display view hierarchy before the corresponding display views are created. The configuration engineer may define where the new display view is located within the display view hierarchy and then create the new display view.

In addition to depicting the hierarchy pane 310, the graphical display configuration application UI 302 depicts a layout 312 which divides a display into four display screens and four display regions 314 a-d (also referred to interchangeably herein as “display sub-areas” or “display portions”), and each display region 314 a-d has a corresponding display view type. For example, the upper left corner display region 314 a is defined to present hierarchy Level 1 display views. The lower left and lower right corner display regions 314 b-c are defined to present hierarchy Level 2 and Level 3 display views and the upper right corner display region 314 d is defined to present alarm list display views. The layout 312 also defines relationships or links between the display regions. For example, the lower left corner display region 314 b automatically presents hierarchy Level 2 display views in response to an operator navigating from a hierarchy Level 1 display view to a hierarchy Level 2 display view in the upper left corner display region 314 a. In another example, the upper right corner display region 314 d may automatically display alarm lists of alarms included in one or more of the display views in the other display regions 314 a-c.

The operator application UI 304 includes the layout 312 defined by the graphical display configuration application 110 which divides a display of an operator workstation into four display screens and four display regions 318 a-d. The upper left corner display region 318 a presents hierarchy Level 1 display views. The lower left and lower right corner display regions 318 b-c present hierarchy Level 2 and Level 3 display views and the upper right corner display region 318 d presents alarm list display views. The operator application UI 304 may present display views according to the hierarchy, layout, and/or other display view elements defined by the graphical display configuration application 110.

The graphical display configuration application UI 302 also includes an administration section 316 (which may, for example, relate to the administration of the operations application/environment 304) for assigning hierarchies, layouts, and/or themes to a particular operator workstation or set of operator workstations. In this manner, operator workstations for operators who monitor one section of the process plant may present hierarchies related to that section and may be restricted from accessing hierarchies related to other sections of the process plant. In some embodiments, a configuration engineer may assign all hierarchies and layouts to each operator workstation via the administration section 316 and the operators may select the layout and hierarchy to present on their respective operator workstations.

FIG. 3B illustrates a home tab 350 of the graphical display configuration application 110 for generating display views that are to be executed on an operator workstation. The home tab 350 includes a new display button 352 for creating a display view, a new layout button 354 for creating a layout, and a new display hierarchy button 356 for creating a hierarchy of display views. The home tab 350 also includes a configuration canvas 366 for configuring display view elements within a display view. The display view elements may be viewed in a configure mode upon selection of a configure button (not shown) and/or a preview mode upon selection of a preview button 364. In an alternate embodiment, the draft or working configuration of the display view elements may be presented (e.g., by default, or continuously presented) on the canvas provided by the configuration application 110, and only a preview button 364 may be displayed (e.g., as is illustrated by FIG. 3B), an activation of which causes a preview of the display view to be displayed in another area or window of the user interface provided by the configuration application 110. The preview mode or the separate display of the preview presents a preview of the display view as it would appear during runtime, so that a configuration engineer may see how the display view and display view elements will look to the operator. For example, the display view elements may be presented with themes, colors, etc. selected in the configuration mode. The configuration engineer may toggle graphical user controls, such as navigation bars, tab bars, etc. on the display view in the preview mode to see how the display view changes in response to user interactions.

To create a display view, the home tab 350 includes graphical user controls for selecting display view elements, such as a basic display elements button 360 which includes shapes such as rectangles, squares, circles, etc., arrows, connectors, text boxes, charts, or any other suitable basic display elements. A display view element selection pane or palette 370 may also be included for selecting display view elements such as faceplate elements, tab elements, bar graph elements, data elements, datalink elements, write elements, buttons, sliders, alarm elements, alarm detail elements, function block elements, navigation bar elements, GEM elements (e.g., such as described in co-owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/692,450 filed on Aug. 31, 2017 and entitled “Derived and Linked Definitions with Override,” the entire disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein), or any other suitable display view elements. The configuration engineer may select display view elements by dragging and dropping the display view elements into the configuration canvas 366 or by using any other suitable graphical user controls. For example, in FIG. 3B the configuration engineer may select the new display button 352 to create a display view for Display1 (ref. no. 368) and may drag and drop a rectangle 374 from the basic display elements button 360 into the configuration canvas 366.

When the rectangle 374 is selected, the properties of the rectangle 374 are presented in an editing pane 380. The editing pane 380 may indicate several properties of the rectangle, such as the rectangle name (Rectangle 1), fill color (white), fill percentage (100%), line color (black), line thickness (1 pt.), line style (solid), etc. Each of the properties may be adjusted in the editing pane 380 via graphical user controls such as drop-down menus or free-form text fields. For example, the line thickness property may include a drop-down menu for selecting one of several line thickness values, such as 0.5 pt., 1 pt., 1.5 pt., etc. The fill color property may include a color palette for selecting one of several colors or a free-form text field for entering RGB color values. In some embodiments, the properties may also be adjusted via graphical user controls at the rectangle 374, such as via a pop-up menu in response to right clicking or double clicking on the rectangle 374. The properties included in the editing pane 380 are merely a few example properties for the rectangle 374. Additional or alternative adjustable properties may also be presented.

Furthermore, relationships or links between display view elements may be established by for example, connecting display view elements via lines or other connectors. Relationships or links may also be established by referencing other display view elements in the properties of a display view element. For example, a first display view element may represent a tank in the process plant. A second display view element may represent a process parameter value for the tank such as a fill percentage. In some scenarios, the configuration engineer may reference the first display view element in the properties of the second display view element so that the first and second display view elements are associated and included together in one or several display views. In some embodiments, each of the linked display view elements associated with a process plant entity or process control element may reference a control tag that refers to control modules, nodes, devices (e.g., field devices), and/or signals that are received and/or transmitted by devices, control modules, or nodes corresponding to the process plant entity.

In any event, the home tab 350 also includes a publish button 358 to publish a graphic (a display view, layout, or display view hierarchy) to the graphical configuration database 120. The published graphics may then be provided to a set of operator workstations and presented to the corresponding operators during runtime.

The novel and inventive graphical display configuration and usage systems and methods described herein provide various features to improve workflow efficiencies and accuracies for configuration engineers while the engineers are creating, designing, and editing configurations of graphical display views. Generally, such features allow a configuration engineer to test, verify, and/or validate the design of a graphical display view entirely within the configuration environment and without impacting runtime process operations. In particular, the configuration engineers are able to test, verify, and/or validate the design of the graphical display view in conjunction with data of the process control system (e.g., process control data and/or other types of data). One or more of such features may be implemented as a graphical display verification or validation tool provided by the graphical display configuration application 110, in an example implementation.

For example, when a reference or link to a data source is included in a display view, the graphical display configuration application 110 determines in-line and in real-time (e.g., upon the engineer entering the identification of the link) whether the reference or link is valid, and provides a real-time indication of the validity/invalidity to the configuration engineer. As such, when the reference or link is not valid, the configuration engineer may be notified immediately and may be able to correct the reference or create an item for the reference. Additionally or alternatively, the graphical display configuration application 110 may include a graphical user control for executing a local test on the UI device 8 presenting the graphical display configuration application 110. The local test provides a testing environment for simulating the operation of unpublished modifications to display views during runtime, so the configuration engineer can see how the display views will look and behave in various scenarios on an operator workstation in the operating environment 105 before being published. For example, the configuration engineer may provide input process parameter values in the testing environment and/or the testing environment may communicate with the control module runtime environment 125 or elsewhere within the operating environment and/or configuration environment of the process control system to obtain real-time process parameter values. The testing environment may then adjust the graphics to reflect changes in the process parameter values according to the definitions provided during configuration, such as presenting an alarm in an alarm banner when a process parameter value triggers the alarm. In this manner, the configuration engineer may perform tests and make further edits to the display views before she decides they are ready for publishing. Further, the graphical display configuration application 110 may include graphical user controls for adding comments to display views. In this manner, a configuration engineer may create notes for him or herself and/or for other configuration engineers when designing and editing the display views. The comments may not be included when the display views are published and may not be downloaded to operator workstations in the operating environment 105 of the process plant 10. Thus, the graphical display configuration application 110 provides a platform for configuration engineers to provide comments on display views without requiring the comments to be hidden before publishing and without the risk of the comments being presented on operator workstations in the operating environment 105. These and other novel and inventive features for improving workflow of graphical display design within the configuration environment of a process control system are discussed herein.

Turning first to FIG. 4A, FIG. 4A illustrates an example view 400 of a portion of the user interface of the graphical display configuration application 110 while it is being utilized for creating a reference to a data source. Referring simultaneously to FIGS. 3A and 3B, the graphical display configuration application UI 302 may include a configuration canvas 402 for use by configuration engineer to configure graphical display view elements within a graphical display view. The display view element selection pane or palette 370 may include a graphical user control for selecting an Embedded Link display view element 404 (where the embedded link may be, for example, a datalink, hyperlink, or other type of reference to a data source) and placing the Embedded Link display view element 404 or corresponding data reference at a particular location on the configuration canvas 402. Generally speaking, the Embedded Link graphical display view element is implemented as an independent display view element object which may be placed or embedded into another graphical element object and is subservient to the host graphical element object, e.g., a text box object. As such, a host graphical element including an embedded link may be manipulated and formatted in the configuration environment 102 as an integral unit which may be integrally sized, moved, copied, etc. to different locations on the display view. To illustrate using the example of a text box graphical element, the text box graphical element is defined by a text box object that includes a reference to an object that defines the embedded link, e.g., an Embedded Link object. When the text box including the referenced embedded link is instantiated in the run-time of the process plant 10, the data value(s) obtained via the link and the static text configured into the text box may automatically remain properly aligned (and may automatically wrap, if wrapping is enabled) so that the text strings and the obtained, linked data have a seamless appearance on display view. As such, in-line alignment appearances of obtained data and text strings is handled by their respective Embedded Link objects, and do not require custom configuration engineering.

The graphical display configuration application UI 302 presents configurable properties of the Embedded Link display view graphical element 404 in an editing pane 410. Such properties may include, for example, a reference or path to the corresponding data source entered in a reference field 412, the data type of the data source such as a process variable value or array of process variable values, such as in a historized set of process variable values, the number of decimals to include when displaying the data source value, a fill color for the Embedded Link display view element 404, other graphical properties, etc. The graphical user control for providing the reference or path to the corresponding data source 412 may be a free-form text field or a browse menu for navigating through one or more directories, for example, to find the desired data source.

When the configuration engineer enters or selects the reference to the corresponding data source in the reference field 412, the graphical display configuration application 110 verifies in real-time, e.g., while the engineer is entering the characters and/or upon the engineer submitting the entirety of the reference identification, that the reference and/or the target data source exists, e.g., in the control configuration database 118. For example, the graphical display configuration application 110 may retrieve the corresponding data source from the control configuration database 118 using the reference or link included in the reference field 412. If the graphical display configuration application 110 is unable to retrieve the data item from the control configuration database 118 using the entered reference (e.g., invalid path name), the graphical display configuration application 110 may determine that the reference is invalid and may responsively provide a real-time indication that the reference is invalid in the reference field 412. For example, the real-time indication may be a squiggly line under the reference, may be a strikethrough of the reference, the reference may be highlighted or presented in a different font color, etc. In this manner, the configuration engineer is immediately notified that the reference is invalid, e.g., while he or she is in the process of creating and/or editing display view, and in particular, while he or she is in the process of configuring the Embedded Link graphical display view element. By providing a real-time indication in the reference field 412, the graphical display configuration application 110 does not interrupt the configuration engineer's workflow by, for example, presenting a message dialog indicating the reference is invalid. This is advantageous over prior systems, where a configuration engineer may not be notified that the reference is invalid until the configuration engineer finishes configuring the entirety of the desired properties of a datalink.

In addition to providing the real-time indication in the reference field 412 when the reference is invalid, the graphical display configuration application 110 may provide real-time indication(s) to notify the configuration engineer of other issues with the reference. For example, a real-time indication may be provided in the reference field 412 when the data source corresponding to the reference is of a different type (e.g., an array) than the type for the Embedded Link display view element 404 (e.g., a process variable value), when the path name is valid but the data source name is invalid, when the path name and data source names are both valid, but the data source is unpopulated, etc.

The configuration engineer may then review the issue by for example, clicking on the reference or hovering over the reference field 412. In response to first user input at the reference such as a mouse click or mouse hover, the graphical display configuration application 110 may present a message dialog indicating the issue 414 (e.g., “Path does not exist”). Subsequently, the configuration engineer may adjust the reference by entering a new reference in the reference field 412 when, for example, the configuration engineer determines the reference was entered incorrectly. The configuration engineer may also create a new data item at the reference via second user input in the reference field 412 such as double-clicking, right-clicking, or selecting the CTRL key and clicking on the reference field 412. In response to the second user input, the graphical display configuration application 110 may present a user interface for creating the data item at the reference. For example, if the data item is a control module, the graphical display configuration application 110 may present a user interface for creating a control module which may be stored in the control configuration database 118 and retrieved using the reference.

In some embodiments, the graphical display configuration application 110 may present a pop-up menu with several selectable options in response to the second user input at the reference field 412, such as an option to create the data item at the reference and an option to find all other instances of the invalid reference in the graphical display configuration application 110. If the configuration engineer selects the option to find all other instances of the invalid reference, the graphical display configuration application 110 may present each display view or display view element that includes the invalid reference. In some embodiments, the configuration engineer may be able to enter a new reference and select an option to replace each instance, or all instances, of the invalid reference with the new reference, via a “Replace” button for example. The configuration engineer may also be able to traverse each of the display views or display view elements that includes the invalid reference and determine whether to replace the instance of the invalid reference with the new reference.

When the graphical display configuration application 110 is able to retrieve the data item from the control configuration database 118 using the reference, the reference is determined to be a valid reference, and the graphical display configuration application 110 does not provide any real-time indication that the reference is invalid in the reference field 412. In such situations, the reference may become a selectable link. For example, when selected, the graphical display configuration application 110 may retrieve and present the corresponding data item (e.g., a control module) on the graphical display configuration application UI 302.

FIG. 4B illustrates a flow diagram of an example method 450 for providing real-time data reference verification in a process control system. The method 450 may be performed by the graphical display configuration application 110 or by any suitable one or more applications operating on one or more UI devices 8.

At block 452, a selection or other obtaining of a reference to a data source or data item for presenting the corresponding data source or data item in a display view is received. For example, the reference may be selected or obtained for an Embedded Link display view element 404 that has been placed on a configuration canvas 402 of a graphical display configuration application 110 as shown in FIG. 4A. In an embodiment, the indication of the reference may be received via an editing pane 410 for the Embedded Link display view element 404, which may include a reference field 412 for entering an identification of the reference via a free-form text field and/or a browse menu for navigating through a directory of files and folders, for example.

At block 454, the graphical display configuration application 110 determines in real-time whether the received reference corresponds to a valid path stored in a memory of the process control system or plant 10, such as the control configuration database 118. For example, the graphical display configuration application 110 may retrieve the corresponding data source from the configuration database 118 using the reference included in the reference field 412. At a block 456, if the graphical display configuration application 110 is unable to retrieve the data item from the control configuration database 118 using the reference, the graphical display configuration application 110 may determine that the reference is invalid. Otherwise, the graphical display configuration application 110 may determine that the reference is valid.

If the reference is valid, the graphical display configuration application 110 may present a graphical user control, such as a selectable link, at the location of the configuration canvas 402 at which the Embedded Link graphical display view element 404 has been placed, the such that when the configuration engineer activates the graphical user control, the graphical display configuration application 110 may retrieve and present the corresponding data item via the graphical display configuration application UI at the location on the configuration canvas (block 458).

On the other hand, if the reference is invalid, the graphical display configuration application 110 may present a real-time indication that the reference is invalid in the reference field 412, such as a squiggly line under the reference, a strikethrough of the reference, the reference may be highlighted or presented in a different font color, etc. (block 460).

In some embodiments, a graphical user control may be presented for creating the data item at the reference (block 462). The reference may be overlaid with a button such that in response to user input at the reference such as double-clicking, right-clicking, or selecting the CTRL button and clicking on the reference field 412, the graphical display configuration application 110 may present a user interface for creating the data item. For example, if the data item is a control module, the graphical display configuration application 110 may present a user interface for creating or searching for a control module which may be stored and retrieved using the reference.

In addition to verifying references in Embedded Link display view elements, the graphical display configuration application 110 improves the workflow for configuration engineers by including graphical user controls for adding comments to display views. In an embodiment, the comments are stored separately from drafts of the display views, so that comments are not provided to and/or stored in the graphical configuration database 120, and therefore are not incorporated into display view publications and downloaded or otherwise provided to operator workstations in the operating environment 105 during runtime. In an alternate embodiment, the comments are stored in conjunction with their respective draft display view, e.g., within the graphical configuration database 120, but are not stored in conjunction with their respective published display view, e.g., within the configuration database 120 or within a publication database (not shown). As such, in this alternate embodiment, comments may be exported in conjunction with their respective draft display view, e.g., to other graphical configuration systems. Moreover, adding, editing, or deleting a comment may or may not change the configuration state of a display view (e.g., “Published,” “Draft,” “In-Progress,” “Under Review,” “Approved Updates Awaiting Publication,” etc. Still further, each comment may include a corresponding status field indicating whether the comment itself has been “Accepted,” “Rejected,” “Under Review,” etc.

This is advantageous over prior systems, where configuration engineers used text boxes overlaid on the display view to make comments, where such overlaid text boxes needed to be deleted or hidden (most of the times, manually and individually) before publishing. Comments which were not deleted may have been presented on operator workstations, and hidden comments were still needlessly stored in memory at the operator workstations. Additionally, there was no mechanism to keep track of the status of comments, such as “Accepted” or “Rejected.”

FIG. 5A illustrates an example view 500 of a portion of the graphical display configuration application 110 for adding comments to a display view. The example view 500 includes a “Review” menu option 502 which when selected, includes a comments section with graphical user controls for adding a new comment 504, deleting a comment 506, deleting all comments 508, or viewing the comments 510. In response to selecting the show comments button 510, the graphical display configuration application 110 may present a comments pane that includes each of the comments associated with the display view.

In response to selecting the new comment button 504, a comment may be added to the display view or to a particular display view element. For example, the configuration engineer may assign the comment to a valve display view element within the display view. When a comment is assigned to a particular display view element, the display view element may be presented with a comments indicator, such as a comments or text icon overlaid on a corner of the display view element. Additionally, the new comment 542 may be presented in a comments pane 540 of the view 530 of the graphical display configuration application 110 as shown in FIG. 5B. The new comment 542 may automatically include the name of the user who created the comment 544 (Jessica) and a timestamp indicating the time and date of the comment 546 (7 Jul. 2017 3:43 PM). The new comment 542 may also include a text field 548 for entering the text of the comment and a status field 550 for setting the status of the comment. The status field 550 may indicate whether the comment has been “Accepted,” “Rejected,” “Under Review,” etc. In some embodiments, the status field 550 may be a drop-down menu where configuration engineers may select one of these statuses.

For example, the configuration engineer who adds the comment 542 may note that the valve display view element corresponding to the comment 542 needs another connection point. The configuration engineer may set the initial status to “Under Review” and when another configuration engineer or other user presents the display view on her UI device 8, she may view the comment 542. If the other configuration engineer or user adds the connection point to the valve display view element, she may change the status field 550 to “Accepted.” In this manner, the configuration engineer who added the comment 542 or other users may see that this comment has been addressed and no further action is needed regarding the comment 542. If the other configuration engineer or user reviews the comment 542 and determines that a new connection point should not be added to the valve display view element, she may change the status field 550 to “Rejected.” In this manner, the configuration engineer who added the comment 542 or other users may see that this comment has been reviewed, but the requested action was not taken.

While the comment 542 shown in FIG. 5B is included in a comments pane 540, comments may be overlaid on a corresponding display view element or display view, or may be included in any suitable combination of the comments pane 540, display view element, and/or display view.

In some embodiments, when the configuration engineer selects a comment in the comments pane 540, the corresponding display view element or comments indicator presented with the display view element may be highlighted. Additionally, when the configuration engineer selects the corresponding display view element or comments indicator presented with the display view element, the comments pane 540 may automatically be presented by the graphical display configuration application 110 and/or the corresponding comment 542 may be highlighted within the comments pane 540. In some embodiments, the comments pane 540 also includes a new comments button 552 for adding new comments. Moreover, when the configuration engineer has reviewed the comment and taken the appropriate action or determines the comment is incorrect or unnecessary, she may delete the comment. The comments pane 540 includes a delete button 554 for each of the comments 542.

New comments, deleted comments, or modifications to comments may be stored at the graphical configuration database 120 in conjunction with draft configurations of a display view. In this manner, each configuration engineer or user who reviews the same display view on her UI device 8 may view the associated comments. When a display view is published, the published configuration is stored in the graphical configuration database 120 and/or in another publication database (not shown) without the comments, so that the published configuration downloaded to operator workstations does not include comments.

In some embodiments, draft configurations of a display view may be provided to customers over a communications network, such as the Internet. The customer may view the draft configurations (e.g., via a hyperlink to the draft configuration provided to the customers) and add comments using the “Review” menu option 502 or any other suitable graphical user controls. The comments to the draft configurations may then be stored in the graphical configuration database 120 and presented when a configuration engineer views the display view. In this manner, customers may request certain features on a display view or request changes to a display view before the display views are presented at operator workstations.

In addition to adding, deleting, or editing comments, the “Review” menu option 502 may include graphical user controls for indicating display views or display view elements are in-progress or ready for publishing. In some embodiments, when a display view is modified the graphical display configuration application 110 automatically presents a publish indicator notifying the configuration engineer that the modified display view needs to be published or needs to be included when publishing other display views. However, in some scenarios, configuration engineers may not want to publish the most recent modifications to a display view until each of the comments are addressed, for example.

Accordingly, the graphical display configuration application 110 includes a graphical user control for indicating a display view or display view element is in-progress. In this manner, the display view or display view element may not be included when publishing the latest version of the graphics. FIG. 5C illustrates an example view 560 of a portion of the graphical display configuration application 110 for indicating display views are ready for publishing or drafts in progress. The example view 560 includes a “Work in Progress” graphical user control 562 within the “Review” menu option for indicating a modified display view or display view element is a work in progress and should not be included in the published graphics. For example, the display view Boiler1test 564 is annotated with an icon indicating that the display view has been modified and the modified version will be included during publishing. By selecting the Boiler1test display view 564 and then selecting the “Work in Progress” graphical user control 562, the configuration engineer may prevent the Boiler1test display view 564 from being published.

In response to selecting the “Work in Progress” graphical user control 562 for the Boiler1test display view 564, the Boiler1test display view 594 in the view 590 as shown in FIG. 5D may no longer be annotated with the icon indicating that the modified version will be included during publishing. As a result, when the configuration engineer or another configuration engineer or user publishes the latest version of the graphics, the Boiler1test display view 594 may not be included. When the configuration engineer determines the draft configuration of the Boiler1test display view 594 is ready for publishing, she may select the “Clear Work in Progress” graphical user control 592 and the modified version of the Boiler1test display view 594 may be included during publishing.

Typically, to test graphics (e.g., display views, hierarchies, layouts, and/or other display view elements) a configuration engineer may publish the graphics and test the graphics in the operating environment 105. However, in this typical scenario, the graphics are published to operator workstations before they have been tested and fully reviewed. To test the graphics before they are published at operator workstations, the graphical display configuration application 110 may include a local test graphical user control (also referred to interchangeably herein as a “Quick On-Line View user control”) for providing a test environment for a draft configuration of a display view on the UI device 8 presenting the graphical display configuration application 110. In this manner, the graphics may be tested locally in the configuration environment 102 before the draft configuration is published and provided to operator workstations in the operating environment 105.

FIG. 6A illustrates an example view 600 of a portion of the graphical display configuration application 110 for performing a local test on display views without publishing the display views to a graphical configuration database and without downloading display views into the operating environment 105. As in FIG. 5A, the example view 600 of FIG. 6A includes a “Review” menu option with a “Local Test” graphical user control 602. While the “Local Test” graphical user control 602 is included within the “Review” menu option, this is merely one example for ease of illustration only. The “Local Test” graphical user control 602 may be included within any suitable menu option or may have its own menu option such as a “Test” menu option in the graphical display configuration application 110.

In any event, in response to selecting the “Local Test” graphical user control 602, the graphical display configuration application 110 may provide a test environment (e.g., a local test environment) that is entirely contained within the configuration environment 102 for testing a selected display view, such as the Boiler1test display view 604. In some embodiments, the configuration engineer may be prompted to select any number of display views or display view elements to include in the testing environment. For example, in response to selecting the “Local Test” graphical user control 602, each display view may be presented with a check box control adjacent to the display view. The configuration engineer may then toggle the check box controls adjacent to the display views and the display views having adjacent check marks or other indicators may be included in the testing environment.

The testing environment may then operate in a similar manner as the operating environment 105 although it is wholly contained within the configuration environment 192. For example, the testing environment may animate graphics and present process parameter values in accordance with the definitions provided with the display views. For example, when a display view includes a tank display view element and a fill bar display view element that fills in proportion to the fill level of the tank, the testing environment may receive fill levels for the tank and may increase or decrease the fill value in the fill bar display view element accordingly.

In some embodiments, the testing environment may include graphical user controls for setting process parameter values at one or several points in time during the local test. In this manner, a configuration engineer may see how a display view changes in response to a particular set of process parameter values and respective adjustments to the process parameter values over time. In other embodiments, the testing environment may obtain process parameter values from the control module runtime environment 125 to obtain real-time process parameter values.

FIG. 6B illustrates an example method 650 for performing a local test on display views in a process control system without publishing the display views and/or without downloading the display views (published or unpublished) into the operating environment 105. The method 650 may be performed by the graphical display configuration application 110, the operator application, or any suitable combination of these operating on one or more UI devices 8.

At block 652, modifications to one or several display views depicting sections of the process plant, alarms, historized process parameters, etc., are received. For example, a configuration engineer may modify a display view by defining display view elements and relationships between the display view elements on the configuration canvas 366 within the graphical display configuration application 110. At block 654, a graphical user control may be presented for performing a local test of the modified display views, such as the “Local Test” graphical user control 602 as shown in FIG. 6A. The “Local Test” graphical user control 602 may be selected (block 656) and the configuration engineer may be prompted to select any number of display views or display view elements to include in a testing environment, e.g., a local testing environment wholly contained within the configuration environment 105.

Then at block 658, the testing environment may be provided on the UI device 8 executing the graphical display configuration application 110. The testing environment may include each of the selected display views and may animate graphics and present process parameter values in accordance with the definitions provided with the display views. In some embodiments, the testing environment may obtain process parameter values from the control module runtime environment 125 and may animate the graphics according to the definitions provided with the display views for the particular process parameter values. In other embodiments, the configuration engineer may provide a list of process parameter values for use in the testing environment, and/or testing values may be obtained from a file stored in the configuration environment 102.

The testing environment may execute the display views on the UI device 8 presenting the graphical display configuration application 110 while the modifications to the display views remain unpublished and designated as draft configurations. The previously published versions of the display views may be stored in the graphical configuration database 120 as published display views, one or more of which may be provided to the operator workstations in the operating environment 105 (block 660). In this manner, the operator workstations may continue to execute a previously published version of the display views in the operating environment 105 while the UI device 8 presenting the graphical display configuration application 110 executes the modified, unpublished version of the display views in the local testing environment of the configuration environment 102.

Once the modified version of the display views has been tested and the configuration engineer is satisfied with the modified version, the modified version of the display views may be published and provided to the operator workstations.

Turning now to FIGS. 7A and 7B, the graphical display configuration application 110 may provide a graphical display verification tool which configuration engineers may utilize while configuring graphical display views to assess the completeness of a draft graphical display views and to find any problems, issues, and/or errors (and in particular, with respect to control configurations) therein. Additionally or alternatively, the graphical display verification tool may be utilized by configuration engineers to assess a draft graphical display views with respect to graphical complexity standards. In an embodiment, the graphical display verification tool may be implemented as a set of computer-executable instructions that are stored on one or more tangible, non-transitory memories of the graphical display configuration system 100, and that may be executed by one or more processors of the graphical display verification tool. For example, the graphical display verification tool may be invoked or called by the graphical display configuration application 110, either automatically or in response to a user request.

In an example scenario, the graphical display verification tool may be activated via a user control provided by the graphical display configuration application 110, and a configuration engineer may select a single, target draft display view on which the tool is to operate. The target draft display view may be partially configured (e.g., in a partial draft state) or entirely configured (e.g., in a draft completed state), and may be stored in the graphical configuration database 120, for instance. Further, the tool may allow the configuration engineer to indicate whether the completeness assessment, the complexity assessment, or both assessments are to be run on the target display view.

FIG. 7A depicts a flow diagram of an example method 700 for assessing the completeness of a single, target draft display view. The method 700 may be performed by the graphical display verification tool, for example, when invoked by a configuration engineer and/or when invoked by the graphical display configuration application 110.

At a block 702, the method 700 may include obtaining an indication of a set of control references corresponding to the target draft display view. Control references may include, for example, control tags that refer to control modules, nodes, devices (e.g., field devices), and/or signals that are received and/or transmitted by devices, control modules, or nodes. Control references may also include control parameters that are parameters of various control modules, nodes, devices, signals, etc. Generally speaking, as used herein, a “node” in a process control system 10 refers to a physical component (e.g., a component that includes hardware) which communicates with one or more other nodes. For example, a process control system 10 may include nodes that are process controllers, I/O cards, workstations, access points, user interface devices, and the like, such as those nodes illustrated in FIG. 1. Obtaining the set of control references corresponding to the target draft display view (block 702) may include receiving or obtaining a list of expected control modules that are to be associated with the target display view, e.g., that include one or more control tags and/or control parameters that are to be referenced by the target graphical display view. Indications of the set of expected control references may be obtained manually, e.g., via a user interface, and/or automatically from the control configuration database 118 of the process plant 10. Alternatively, obtaining the set of control references (block 702) may include retrieving control references that are included in the draft configuration of the target graphical display view.

For each control reference included in the set of control references, e.g., for each “subject” control reference (block 705), the method 700 may include determining whether or not the subject control reference is included in or otherwise associated the target graphical display view (block 708). That is, at the block 708, the method 700 may determine whether or not the target graphical display view (or graphical display view element included thereon) has been configured to include or otherwise be associated with the subject control reference. An issue, problem, or error corresponding to the subject control reference being missing from or not associated with the target graphical display view configuration may be flagged (block 710) when the subject control reference is not included in the configuration of the target graphical display view, e.g., when no graphical display element of the target display view (e.g., which may represent a module, device, node, name, property, etc.) has been configured with the subject control reference, and no graphical expression, script, or other function included in the target display view indicates the subject control reference. For example, when a target display view is intended to be a primary control display, a faceplate display, or a detail display of the subject control reference, the subject control reference need not be actually configured onto a graphical element of the display view, but nonetheless the display view may store or be configured with an indication of an association with the control reference (e.g., which may appear in runtime on the display view as a label, a name, etc.).

It is noted that, in some embodiments, the block 708 may be omitted from the method 700, for example, when the set or list of control references corresponding to the target display view is obtained (block 702) directly from the configuration of the target graphical display view.

At any rate, when the target graphical display view includes the subject control reference, the method 700 may determine whether or not the control reference itself is configured (block 712), e.g., whether or not the control reference is found or stored in the control configuration database 118 of the process control system 10. If the control reference is configured and found in the control configuration database 118, at the block 712 the method 700 additionally determines if the configuration of the control reference as stored in the control configuration database 118 is consistent with its reference and/or usage on the target graphical display view. If the control reference is not configured, or if the control reference included on the target graphical display view is inconsistent with its configuration stored in the control configuration database 118, an issue, problem, or error corresponding to the subject control reference is flagged (block 710). For example, the corresponding issue flag may indicate that the control reference is unresolved.

If the control reference is configured, and its configuration that is stored in the control configuration database 118 is consistent with its reference/usage on the target graphical display view (e.g., as determined at the block 712), the method 700 determines whether or not related graphical display views and/or display view elements corresponding to the control reference are defined or configured (block 715). For example, for a control tag that is referenced on a faceplate display view, at the block 715 the method 700 may determine whether or not a corresponding detail display view and a corresponding primary control display view that utilize the control tag are defined within the graphical display configuration system 100. If one or more related graphical display views and/or elements are not defined for the subject control reference, an issue, problem, or error corresponding to the subject control reference and/or to the missing graphical display views and/or elements may be flagged (block 710). For example, the corresponding issue flag may indicate that related graphical display views and/or elements are missing or unresolved.

It is noted that the blocks 708, 712, 715 may be performed for a subject control reference sequentially in any desired order and/or, in some embodiments, may be performed at least in part in a parallel manner. At any rate, after a subject control reference has been processed (e.g., the blocks 708-715), the method 700 may determine whether or not there are any additional control references corresponding to the target draft display view to process (block 718). If so, the method 700 may return to the block 705 to process another control reference. If not, then the method 700 may proceed to indicate the flagged issues, problems, or errors (block 720).

The flagged issues, problems, or errors may be indicated (block 720) by using one or more suitable indications. A particularly useful indication for the configuration engineer is that of in-line highlighting or otherwise distinguishing the control references that are included in the target graphical display view that have associated issues, problems, or errors. For example, the flagged control references may be indicated on the graphical configuration display canvas, e.g., by a visual symbol displayed near the control reference or near the graphical element that utilizes the control reference, and/or by applying a visualization (e.g., greyed out, highlighted, flashing, etc.) to the control reference and/or to its host graphical element. In an embodiment, lists or other indications of expected references and data sources may be provided to the graphical configuration system 100 for local access thereto so that on-line checking of references and/or data sources utilized by graphical display views and/or graphical display view elements may be performed, even when the configuration database 118 has not yet fully been configured. Different visual symbols and/or visualizations may represent different types of issues, problems, or errors and may be defined as such, if desired. Similarly, flagged control references may be indicated on accompanying text-based areas (such as on edit panes, banners, and other areas of the user interface provided by the graphical display configuration application 110 that provide textual information describing the target graphical display view and/or elements included thereon), e.g., via visual symbols, visualizations, etc. Thus, during the design or development of the target display view, a configuration engineer may easily determine which portions of the target draft display view are not yet completed, and in particular with respect to tying together, referencing, or otherwise linking graphical elements and control references to control configuration objects or definitions. Additionally or alternatively, the flagged issues or problems may be indicated (block 720) via a file, report, or other suitable format, e.g., as part of a completeness assessment, which may be displayed on the user interface and/or may be exported for saving, analyzing, and/or printing at another computing device. In some situations, the completeness assessment or at least a portion of its contents may be provided for documentation purposes.

In some embodiments, the method 700 may be applied to a graphical reference instead of to a control reference. That is, the method 700 may be applied to a reference to a graphical display element object, parameter, or variable that is included on the target graphical display view, and/or to a graphical display element object, parameter, or variable that is configured and stored in the graphical configuration library or database 120. For example, when the method 700 is applied to graphical references, the block 702 may include obtaining graphical references corresponding to the graphical display view, the block 712 may include determining whether or not a subject graphical reference is defined in the graphical configuration database 120, and the block 718 may include determining whether or not there are any more graphical references to process. Accordingly, in these embodiments, the method 700 may assess graphical display view configurations and graphical references included thereon against configured graphical displays, graphical display elements, graphical parameters, graphical variables, standards, GEM classes, functions, etc. that are stored in the graphical configuration library 120. Inconsistencies and/or omissions between the graphical display view configurations and the information stored in the graphical configuration database 120 may be flagged as issues, problems, or errors by the method 700.

FIG. 7B depicts an example completeness assessment 725 of a draft graphical display view (or portion thereof) which may be generated by the graphical display verification tool provided by the graphical display configuration application 110, e.g., at the block 720 of the method 700. The example completeness assessment 725 indicates the subject display view 728 a, and may include a column 728 b listing various control references (e.g., control tags and/or control parameters) that are included on the indicated display view, a column 728 c indicating whether or not the indicated control reference was flagged with an issue, problem, or error, and a column 728 d including a respective explanation of a flagged issue, problem, or error (or an indication of no issue/problem/error, if so discovered by the tool). Optionally, the assessment 725 may also indicate a respective severity of a flagged issue, problem, or error 728 e. Possible types of flagged issues, problems, or errors and corresponding explanations may include, for example:

-   -   the display view 728 a utilizes or is associated with a control         reference 728 b, but the control reference 728 b does not exist         in the control configuration database 118,     -   the display view 728 a utilizes or is associated with a         graphical element reference 728 b (which may be, for example, a         graphical display element or another graphical display view),         but the graphical element reference 728 b does not exist in the         control configuration database 118, and/or     -   another type of issue, problem, error, or inconsistency between         the graphical configuration library 120 and the control         configuration database 118.

Possible types of non-issue/problem/error and corresponding explanations that may be displayed in the column 728 d may include, for example:

-   -   the display view 728 a utilizes the control reference 728 b,     -   the display view 728 a is a faceplate display view of the         control reference 728 b,     -   the display view 728 a is a detail display view of the control         reference 728 b, and/or     -   the display view 728 a is a primary control display of the         control reference 728 b, e.g., when the control reference 728         indicates a device or node, and the control reference is not         included on the display view 728.

FIG. 7C depicts another example completeness assessment 730 which may be generated by the graphical display verification tool that is provided by the graphical display configuration application 110, e.g., at the block 720 of the method 700. The example completeness assessment 730 is implemented as a spreadsheet or table, although other implementations and/or representations may be utilized as desired. This example completeness assessment 730 generally presents only issue/problems/errors (and not non-issues/problems/errors) that have been flagged by the tool. For example, the assessment 730 includes a column 732 a listing various display views that have been assessed by the tool, a column 732 b indicating a severity of a particular issue, problem, or error found with respect to the respective display view, a column 732 c describing a category or type of the particular issue, problem, or error, a column 732 d including a description of the particular issue, problem, or error, and a column 732 e indicating a particular location or graphical element of the display view at which the particular issue, problem, or error was discovered. Notably, any of the information included in the assessment 730 may include an active link via which the configuration engineer may navigate to a location at which he or she may take steps to correct the issue, problem, or error. For example, referring to the first row of the assessment 730, when the configuration engineer selects “\Library\Standards\Color1 does not exist” in column 732 d, a window to the Standards Library may automatically open via which the configuration engineer is able to configure or define Color1. Alternatively, the configuration engineer may select “Group1\Rectangle1\Fill Color” in column 732 e, which may result in a window to the configuration pane of Group1\Rectangle1 via which the configuration engineer may change the Fill Color from “Color1” to some defined color. Similarly, in the second row of the assessment 730, the configuration engineer is able to select “FIC-1/PROCESSVALUE” to be automatically placed into a configuration pane for FIC-1 via which the engineer is able to change the data reference or path to the PV of FIC-1, or the configuration engineer is able to select “GEM1\Rectangle1\Fill Percent\Fill Value” to change the control reference included in Rectangle1 of GEM1 from FIC-1/PROCESSVALUE to some other defined or configured control tag.

In an embodiment, the graphical display verification tool provided by the graphical display configuration application 110 may prevent the publication of a target graphical display view when one or more completeness issues, problems, or errors are associated therewith. For example, the tool may identify or discover issues, problems, or errors in the draft graphical configuration of the process plant 10, and/or in the control configuration of the process plant as a control configuration action relates to the graphical configuration. Detected issues, problems, or errors may be corrected by the configuration engineer and/or automatically before the configuration(s) are downloaded and executed in the runtime of the process 10.

In some embodiments, the graphical display configuration application 110 may provide the ability to access the complexity of a single, target draft display view, a selected portion of a single, target draft display view, or a group of target draft display views. Assessing and managing the complexity of HMIs is particularly important for operator display views of process control plants to increase the operators' situational awareness. If operators are unable to notice and/or hone in on a critical piece of information presented on an operator display view (and/or take too long to discover the critical piece of information), the industrial process may become uncontrolled and lead to explosions, fires, poisonous leaks, damage to or loss of equipment, and/or loss of human life. The complexity assessment provided by the graphical display verification tool may allow a configuration engineer to assess a draft configuration display view against research-based standards and best practices (such as described in aforementioned ANSI/ISA-101.01-2015, for example), as well as to assess display view complexity across a suite of display views in a process plant 10, thereby maintaining a consistency of complexity for the operators.

Generally speaking, the graphical display configuration application 110 may assess the complexity of a target graphical display view by analyzing the target display view's draft configuration to ascertain or determine total counts of various types of graphical display view elements included thereon, and optionally to determine a clutter index of target graphical display view based on the counts. For example, the application or tool 110 may count the number of unique control tags (e.g., of control modules, nodes, devices, signals, etc.) that are found in the draft configuration, where the control tag count may include both configured control tags and references to control tags (e.g., references to control tags included in graphical expressions or scripts). The application or tool 110 may count the number of unique control parameters (e.g., as included in control modules, nodes, devices, signals, etc.) that are found in the draft configuration. In some embodiments, control tag counts and control parameter counts may include those control tags and control parameters utilized by linked and/or embedded GEMs included in the target graphical display view. Additionally or alternatively, the graphical display verification tool may count the number of graphical display view elements included in the target graphical display view (where each element may be represented as a separate and distinct object, for example). In an embodiment, the element count may be subdivided by category or type of element (e.g., connectors, data links, lines, text boxes, trends, pumps, etc.).

Other measures of the complexity of the target graphical display view may be determined by the graphical display verification tool. For example, measures of whitespace (e.g., empty or blank spaces) and/or prominence (e.g., how likely an operator is to look at or pay attention to) of various graphics and/or areas may be determined by the tool. Generally, the graphical display verification tool may determine or calculate, for the target graphical display view, one or more measures of visual salience using one or more suitable techniques, such as by counting, measuring, calculating, using advanced heuristics, etc.

A clutter index for the target graphical display view may be calculated based on the various visual salience measures. Generally speaking, the clutter index may be indicative of a measure of density and/or disorder of graphical display view elements on the target graphical display view. The clutter index may be applied to a selected area of the target display view, or to the target display view in its entirety. The logic for determining the clutter index may be configurable, in an embodiment, so as to be able to be updated to reflect the most current graphical display standards and/or best practices. Different thresholds of clutter indexes and/or of other measures of visual salience may be defined for different levels of display view hierarchies (e.g., L1, L2, etc.). In an embodiment, a respective target range for a particular visual salience measure (e.g., for a particular display view level, or otherwise as desired) may be set to a default range out-of-the-box, and may be tuned via the graphical configuration application 110 as desired.

An indication of the complexity of the target graphical display view may be presented on the user interface of the graphical display configuration application or tool 110, and/or may be exported to a file or another computing device. An example complexity assessment 750 of a target graphical display view is depicted in FIG. 7D. The example assessment 750 includes a summary section 752 a, which provides an overview of the target display's complexity, including the display's name, description control tag count, control parameter count, element count, and clutter index. Optionally (e.g., when requested by the user), the assessment 750 may include a more detailed section 752 b in which the element counts are indicated by type or category (e.g., AnalogBar, Connector, Control Valve, etc.). Generally speaking, the assessment 700 may present measurements and counts of any visual saliency parameter of the target graphical display view.

The graphical display configuration application or tool 110 may also provide assessments across a set of multiple graphical display views in any desired format, such as graphs indicating the respective clutter indexes of each member of the set of graphical display views, how various graphical display views compare against a clutter index standard or target, a relative clutter indication of the entire set of graphical display views as a whole, etc. In some situations, the completeness assessment(s) or at least a portion of its contents may be provided for documentation purposes.

FIG. 8 depicts a flow diagram of an example method 800 of validating a draft of a display view of a process control system of a process plant. Generally speaking, the method 800 is directed to validating, entirely within a configuration environment of the process control system, a run-time appearance and/or a run-time behavior of a draft of a graphical display view that, after its approval and/or publication, is to execute at a user interface device of an operating environment of the process control plant during runtime of the process control system. At least one or more portions of the method 800 may be performed by one or more various devices disposed in the configuration environment 102 of the process plant 10, in an implementation. For example, in an embodiment, the method 800 is performed by one or more instances of the graphical configuration application 110. For ease of discussion, and not for limitation purposes, the method 800 is discussed below with simultaneous reference to the systems and devices of FIGS. 1A-7D, however, it is understood that the method 800 may be performed by other suitable systems and/or devices.

As depicted in FIG. 8, at a block 802, the method 800 includes obtaining, within a configuration environment of a process control system of a process plant, a draft of a configuration of a display view (e.g., a draft graphical display view configuration), where the configuration of the display view is to define respective links between one or more graphical elements included on the display view and one or more control elements included in an operating environment of a process control system of a process plant so that, upon download and execution of the display view at a user interface device included in the operating environment, respective indications of one or more values that are generated by the one or more control elements executing in the operating environment of the process control system to control the process in the process plant are presented and repeatedly updated on the executing display view. For example, the draft of the configuration of the display view may be obtained (block 802) at a user interface provided by graphical configuration application 110 executing at one or more computing devices of the configuration environment 102 of the process control system of the process plant 10.

At a block 805, the method 800 includes validating at least one of a run-time appearance or a run-time behavior of at least a portion of the draft configuration of the display view. Generally speaking, the validating of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof (block 805) occurs entirely within the configuration environment 102 of the process control system, and does not occur even at least partially within the operating environment 105 of the process control system. Further, the run-time behavior and/or the run-time appearance of draft configuration of the display view or portion thereof may be validated (block 805) while the display view is being configured, e.g., in-line, from a configuration engineer's perspective, with the workflow of configuring the display view. That is, the validation (block 805) occurs prior to approving and/or publishing the draft configuration of the display view within the process control system, where the process control system may prohibit draft display view configurations and draft graphical element configurations from being downloaded or otherwise provided to the operating environment 105, and where the process control system allows publications of display view configurations and graphical element configurations to be provided to the operating environment 105.

In some embodiments, the method 800 includes receiving or obtaining an indication of a selected portion of the draft configuration of the display view (not shown in FIG. 8). In these embodiments, the block 805 operates to validate the run-time appearance and/or the run-time behavior of the selected portion of the draft configuration of the display view.

The validation (block 805) of the draft configuration of the display view (or portion thereof) may be based on data provided by one or more data sources that are included in the process control system and that are external to the draft of the display view configuration. Said data sources may be disposed within the configuration environment 102 of the process control system and/or within the operating environment 105 of the process control system, and may include live data streams or feeds, user inputs, and/or data points and/or files that are stored in various memories and/or data storage devices.

At a block 808, the method 800 includes presenting one or more results of the validation of the draft of the display view configuration or portion thereof at the user interface of the graphical configuration application 110. As such, the configuration engineer who is working to configure the display view may be apprised of the real-time behavior and/or the real-time appearance of at least a portion of the present draft of the display view configuration while the display view is being configured, and may adjust the draft configuration accordingly. In some embodiments, at least some of the results of the validation may be stored in one or more databases and/or provided to other computing devices.

In an embodiment, validating the run-time appearance and/or run-time behavior of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof (block 805 of the method 800) may include one or portions of the method 450 for providing real-time data reference verification within the process control system discussed above with respect to FIG. 4B. For example, in such embodiments, validating the draft display view configuration or portion thereof (block 805) may include one or more of the blocks 452, 454, 456 of the method 450. Additionally, in such embodiments, presenting the one or more results of the validation (block 808 of the method 800) may include one or more of the blocks 458, 460, 462 of the method 450. An example implementation of real-time data reference validation or verification is discussed above with respect to FIGS. 4A-4B.

In an embodiment, validating the run-time appearance and/or run-time behavior of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof (block 805 of the method 800) may include one or more portions of the method 650 for performing a local test on a draft display view configuration discussed above with respect to FIG. 6B. For example, in such embodiments, validating the draft display view configuration or portion thereof (block 805) may include one or more of the blocks 652, 654, 658 of the method 650. Further, in such embodiments, presenting the one or more results of the validation (block 808 of the method 800) may include presenting the run-time appearance and/or the run-time behavior of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof resulting from the application of one or more test values at one or more portions of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof. An example implementation of local testing of draft display view configurations (or portions thereof) is discussed above with respect to FIGS. 6A-6B.

In an embodiment, validating the run-time appearance and/or the run-time behavior of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof (block 805 of the method 800) may include one or more portions of the method 700 for assessing the completeness of a target draft display view or portion thereof, which was discussed above with respect to FIG. 7A. For example, in such embodiments, validating the draft display view configuration or portion thereof (block 805) may include one or more of the blocks 702, 705, 708, 710, 712, 715, 718 of the method 700. Further, in such embodiments, presenting the one or more results of the validation (block 808 of the method 800) may include at least a portion of the block 720 of the method 700.

In an embodiment (not shown), validating the run-time appearance and/or the run-time behavior of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof (block 805 of the method 800) may include determining a measurement of visual salience of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof. Such embodiments may also include comparing the measured visual salience with a graphical display standard, a graphical display best practice, and/or visual salience measurement of another display view.

Determining the measurement of visual salience of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof may include determining a respective count of different graphical elements included in the targeted at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; different types of graphical elements included in the targeted at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; unique control tags indicated in the targeted at least the portion of the draft display view configuration (which may include those utilized by linked and/or embedded GEMs included in the draft display view configuration); and/or unique control parameters indicated in the targeted at least the portion of the draft display view configuration (which may include those utilized by linked and/or embedded GEMs included in the draft display view configuration). Additionally or alternatively, determining the measurement of visual salience of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof may include determining an amount of white space included in the draft display view configuration or portion thereof, and/or determining respective prominences of various portions in such graphical elements of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof.

In some implementations, validating the run-time appearance and/or the run-time behavior of the targeted draft display view configuration (block 805 of the method 800) by determining its measurement of visual salience may include determining a clutter index of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof, where the clutter index is calculated based on a plurality of different visual salience measurements of the targeted draft display view configuration or portion thereof. Generally speaking, the clutter index is indicative of a measure of a density and/or disorder of graphical elements included in the targeted draft display view configuration or portion thereof. An example implementation of completeness assessments of draft graphical display view configurations is discussed above with respect to FIGS. 7A-7C.

In an embodiment (not shown), validating the run-time appearance and/or the run-time behavior of the draft display view configuration or portion thereof (block 805 of the method 800) may include providing a user control via which the user may view, enter, modify, delete, review, reject, edit, accept, and/or change the status of comments associated with the draft display view configuration. For example, a user control may be provided via the user interface of the graphical configuration application. In some implementations, respective user controls may be respectively provided via multiple instances of the graphical configure application, so that multiple users may administer comments associated with the draft display view configuration. Typically, comments that are administered via a comments user control are stored in conjunction with the draft display view configuration, and are removed or otherwise disassociated from any publications of the draft display view configuration. As such, any publication of the draft display view configuration excludes comments that were entered via a comments user control, and any such comments are prevented from being inadvertently displayed within the operating environment of the process control system.

A comment may be displayed at a particular area of the user interface of the graphical configuration application that is separate from the configuration canvas, and/or a comment may be displayed at a particular location on the configuration canvas, e.g., within a text box presented at a location that corresponds to the subject of the comment and/or that is selected by a user. An example implementation of configuration comments is described above with respect to FIGS. 5A-5D.

Of course, the method 800 may include additional, less, or alternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

Embodiments of the techniques described in the present disclosure may include any number of the following aspects, either alone or combination:

1. A graphical configuration system for a process control system of a process plant, the graphical configuration system comprising: a graphical configuration application executing in an configuration environment of the process control system of the process plant, the graphical configuration application having a user interface via which a draft of a configuration of a display view is presented, the display view configuration defining respective links between one or more graphical elements included on the display view and one or more control elements included in an operating environment of the process control system of the process plant so that, upon download and execution of the display view at a user interface device included in the operating environment, respective indications of one or more values that are generated by the one or more control elements while executing in the operating environment of the process control system to control the process at the process plant are presented and repeatedly updated at the executing display view; and

the graphical configuration application providing, via the user interface, a validation tool configured to: validate, within the configuration environment and prior to a publication of the draft of the display view configuration, at least one of a runtime appearance or runtime behavior of the draft of the display view configuration, the validation of the draft of the display view configuration based on data provided by one or more data sources that are included in the process control system and that are external to the draft of the display view configuration, wherein publications of display view configurations are allowed to be provided to the operating environment for execution, and optionally wherein drafts of display view configurations are prohibited from being provided to the operating environment; and present one or more results of the validation of the draft of the display view configuration at the user interface of the graphical configuration application.

2. The graphical configuration system of the previous aspect, wherein: the draft display view configuration includes a graphical element object including a field for storing a reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources; the validation of the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the draft display view configuration includes a real-time validation of contents of the field while the field is being populated via the user interface of the graphical configuration application, the real-time validation of the contents of the field including a real-time validation of at least one of: a path to the data provided by the one or more data sources, a presence of the data at the one or more data sources, or an expected type of the data provided by the one or more data sources; and when at least a portion of the contents of the field are determined in real-time to be invalid, the presentation of the one or more results of the real-time validation includes an indication of the invalidity within the field while the field is being populated.

3. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, further comprising, when the at least the portion of the contents of the field are determined to be invalid, presenting one or more user controls at the user interface of the graphical configuration application via which at least one of: a new data item is created, the data stored at the one or more data sources is modified, or a type of data stored at the one or more data sources is modified.

4. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein the reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources is a datalink or a hyperlink.

5. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein: the graphical element object including the field for storing the reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources is a first graphical element object; and the first graphical element object is referenced by a second graphical element object, the second graphical element object included in the draft display view configuration and defining a second graphical element on the display view so that the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the draft display view configuration includes a presentation of the data provided by the one or more data sources at the second graphical element.

6. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein the simulation of the display view is provided via a preview of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration within the configuration environment.

7. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein: the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the draft display view configuration is presented on the user interface provided by the graphical configuration application and includes a simulation of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration; the graphical configuration application is further configured to obtain one or more test input values, and apply the obtained one or more test input values at one or more graphical elements included in the simulation of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration; and the one or more results of the validation of the draft display view configuration include at least one of a simulated runtime appearance or a simulated runtime behavior of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration, the at least one of the simulated runtime appearance or the simulated runtime behavior resulting from the application of the one or more test input values at the one or more graphical elements.

8. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein at least a portion of the one or more test input values is entered via a user control of the validation tool.

9. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein at least a portion of the one or more test input values is obtained from a data file that is indicated via a user control of the validation tool.

10. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein at least a portion of the one or more test input values are indicated, via the user interface of the validation tool, and are obtained from the operating environment of the process control system.

11. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein the one or more test values include different sets of test values that are to be applied to one or more different graphical elements at different points in time during the simulation.

12. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein: the validation of the draft display view configuration comprises (i) a determination of a measurement of visual salience of the draft display view configuration, and (ii) a comparison of the measured visual salience of the draft display view configuration with at least one of a graphical display standard, a graphical display best practice, or a visual salience measurement of another display view; and the data provided by the one or more data sources external to the draft display view configuration includes at least one of: a parameter value indicative of the graphical display standard, a parameter value indicative of the graphical display best practice, or the visual salience measurement of the another display view.

13. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein the validation of the draft display view configuration comprises a determination of a clutter index, the clutter index calculated based on a plurality of different visual salience measurements of the draft display view configuration, and the clutter index indicative of a measure of a density and/or a disorder of graphical elements included in the draft display view configuration.

14. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein the clutter index is determined for a selected area of the draft display view configuration.

15. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein the measurement of visual salience of the draft display view configuration includes a respective count of at least one of: different graphical elements included in the draft display view configuration; different types of graphical elements included in the draft display view configuration; unique control tags indicated in the draft display view configuration; or unique control parameters indicated in the draft display view configuration.

16. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein the measurement of visual salience of the draft display view configuration is further based on at least one of: an amount of whitespace included in the draft display view configuration, or respective prominences of various portions and/or graphical elements of the draft display view configuration.

17. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein at least one of: the unique control tags indicated in the draft display view configuration include unique control tags utilized by linked and/or embedded Graphic Element Modules (GEMs) that are included in the draft display view configuration; or the unique control parameters indicated in the draft display view configuration include unique control parameters utilized by the linked and/or embedded Graphic Element Modules (GEMs) that are included in the draft display view configuration.

18. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein: the graphical configuration application further provides, via the user interface, a user control to enter comments associated with the draft display view configuration, the comments displayed within a text box overlaid onto the draft display view configuration at a particular location indicated via the user interface of the graphical configuration application; and the comments associated with the draft display view configuration are excluded from any publication of the draft display view configuration.

19. The graphical configuration system of any one of the previous aspects, wherein the graphical configuration application is further configured to permit the comments to be at least one of viewed, modified, edited, reviewed, rejected, deleted, or accepted via multiple instances of the user interface of the graphical configuration application.

20. A method of validating a draft of a display view for execution in operating environment of a process control system of a process plant, the method comprising:

obtaining, at a user interface provided by a graphical configuration application executing in an configuration environment of the process control system of the process plant, a draft of a configuration of a display view, the display view configuration defining respective links between one or more graphical elements included on the display view and one or more control elements included in the operating environment of the process control system of the process plant so that, upon download and execution of the display view at a user interface device included in the operating environment, respective indications of one or more values that are generated by the one or more control elements while executing in the operating environment of the process control system to control the process at the process plant are presented and repeatedly updated at the executing display view;

validating, within the configuration environment and by the graphical configuration application, at least one of a runtime appearance or runtime behavior of at least a portion of the draft of the display view configuration prior to publishing the draft of the display view configuration, the validating based on data provided by one or more data sources that are included in the process control system and that are external to the draft of the display view configuration, wherein draft display view configurations and draft graphical element configurations are prohibited from being provided to the operating environment, and wherein published display view configurations are allowed to be provided to the operating environment for execution; and

presenting one or more results of the validation of the at least the portion of the draft of the display view configuration at the user interface of the graphical configuration application.

21. The method of the previous aspect performed by any one of the graphical configuration systems of aspects 1-19.

22. The method of any one of aspects 20-21, wherein validating the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration comprises: validating contents of a field of a graphical element object that is included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration in real-time while the field is being populated via the user interface of the graphical configuration application, the field for storing a reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources; and when at least a portion of the contents of the field of the graphical element object is determined in real-time to be invalid, presenting the one or more results of the real-time validation includes presenting, within the field, an indication of the invalidity in real-time while the field is being populated.

23. The method of any one of aspects 20-22, wherein validating the contents of the field of the graphical element object comprises validating at least one of: a path to the data provided by the one or more data sources, a presence of the data at the one or more data sources, or an expected type of the data provided by the one or more data sources.

24. The method of any one of aspects 20-23, further comprising, when the at least the portion of the contents of the field of the graphical element object is determined to be invalid, presenting one or more user controls at the user interface of the graphical configuration application via which at least one of: a new data item is created, the data stored at the one or more data sources is modified, or a type of data stored at the one or more data sources is modified.

25. The method of any one of aspects 20-24, wherein validating the contents of the field for storing the reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources includes validating the contents of a field for storing a datalink or a hyperlink.

26. The method of any one of aspects 20-25, wherein: the graphical element object including the field for storing the reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources is a first graphical element object; and the first graphical element object is referenced by a second graphical element object, the second graphical element object included in the draft display view configuration and defining a second graphical element on the display view so that the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the draft display view configuration includes a presentation of the data provided by the one or more data sources at the second graphical element.

27. The method of any one of aspects 20-26,

further comprising: presenting the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration on the user interface provided by the graphical configuration application, including presenting a simulation of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration; obtaining, via the graphical configuration application, one or more test input values; and applying the obtained one or more test input values at one or more graphical elements included in the simulation of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration; and

wherein presenting the one or more results of the validation of the draft display view configuration includes presenting at least one of a simulated runtime appearance or a simulated runtime behavior of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration, the at least one of the simulated runtime appearance or the simulated runtime behavior resulting from the applied one or more test input values.

28. The method of any one of aspects 20-27, wherein obtaining the one or more test input values comprises obtaining at least a portion of one or more test input values that are entered via a user control of the validation tool.

29. The method of any one of aspects 20-28, wherein obtaining the one or more test input values comprises obtaining at least a portion of the one or more test input values from a data file that is indicated via a user control of the validation tool.

30. The method of any one of aspects 20-29, wherein at least a portion of the one or more test input values are indicated via the user interface of the validation tool, and obtaining the one or more test input values comprises obtaining the at least the portion of the one or more test input values indicated via the user interface of the validation tool from the operating environment of the process control system.

31. The method of any one of aspects 20-30, wherein applying the one or more test values at the one or more graphical elements comprises applying different sets of test values to one or more different graphical elements at different points in time during the simulation.

32. The method of any one of aspects 20-31, wherein validating the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration comprises (i) determining a measurement of visual salience of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration, and (ii) comparing the measured visual salience of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration with at least one of a graphical display standard, a graphical display best practice, or a visual salience measurement of another display view.

33. The method of any one of aspects 20-32, wherein determining the measurement of visual salience of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration includes determining a respective count of at least one of: different graphical elements included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; different types of graphical elements included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; unique control tags indicated in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; or unique control parameters indicated in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration.

34. The method of any one of aspects 20-33, wherein at least one of:

determining the respective count of the unique control tags indicated in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration includes determining a respective count of unique control tags utilized by linked and/or embedded Graphic Element Modules (GEMs) that are included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; or

determining the respective count of the unique control parameters indicated in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration includes determining a respective count of unique control parameters utilized by the linked and/or embedded Graphic Element Modules (GEMs) that are included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration.

35. The method of any one of aspects 20-34, wherein determining the measurement of visual salience of the at least the portion of draft display view configuration includes determining at least one of: an amount of whitespace included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration, or respective prominences of various portions and/or graphical elements of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration.

36. The method of any one of aspects 20-35, wherein: the measurement of visual salience of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration is included in a plurality of different visual salience measurements of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; and validating the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration comprises determining a clutter index of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration, the clutter index calculated based on the plurality of different visual salience measurements of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration, and the clutter index indicative of a measure of a density and/or a disorder of graphical elements included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration.

37. The method of any one of aspects 20-36, wherein the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration is a part of an entirety of the draft display view configuration presented on the user interface; and the method further comprises receiving a selection of the part of the entirety of the draft display view configuration presented on the user interface.

38. The method of any one of aspects 20-37, further comprising providing, via the user interface of the graphical configuration application, a user control to enter comments associated with the draft display view configuration, and presenting received comments within a text box overlaid onto the draft display view configuration at a particular location indicated via the user interface of the graphical configuration application; and wherein the comments associated with the draft display view configuration are excluded from any publication of the draft display view configuration.

39. The method of any one of aspects 20-38, further comprising permitting the received comments to be at least one of viewed, modified, edited, reviewed, rejected, deleted, or accepted via multiple instances of the user interface of the graphical configuration application.

40. Any one of the previous aspects in combination with any other one of the previous aspects.

Additionally, the previous aspects of the disclosure are exemplary only and not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure.

The following additional considerations apply to the foregoing discussion. Throughout this specification, actions described as performed by any device or routine generally refer to actions or processes of a processor manipulating or transforming data according to machine-readable instructions. The machine-readable instructions may be stored on and retrieved from a memory device communicatively coupled to the processor. That is, methods described herein may be embodied by a set of machine-executable instructions stored on a computer readable medium (i.e., on a memory device), such as illustrated in FIG. 1B. The instructions, when executed by one or more processors of a corresponding device (e.g., a server, a user interface device, etc.), cause the processors to execute the method. Where instructions, routines, modules, processes, services, programs, and/or applications are referred to herein as stored or saved on a computer readable memory or on a computer readable medium, the words “stored” and “saved” are intended to exclude transitory signals.

Further, while the terms “operator,” “personnel,” “person,” “user,” “technician,” and like other terms are used to describe persons in the process plant environment that may use or interact with the systems, apparatus, and methods described herein, these terms are not intended to be limiting. Where a particular term is used in the description, the term is used, in part, because of the traditional activities in which plant personnel engage, but is not intended to limit the personnel that could be engaging in that particular activity.

Additionally, throughout this specification, plural instances may implement components, operations, or structures described as a single instance. Although individual operations of one or more methods are illustrated and described as separate operations, one or more of the individual operations may be performed concurrently, and nothing requires that the operations be performed in the order illustrated. Structures and functionality presented as separate components in example configurations may be implemented as a combined structure or component. Similarly, structures and functionality presented as a single component may be implemented as separate components. These and other variations, modifications, additions, and improvements fall within the scope of the subject matter herein.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, discussions herein using words such as “processing,” “computing,” “calculating,” “determining,” “identifying,” “presenting,” “causing to be presented,” “causing to be displayed,” “displaying,” or the like may refer to actions or processes of a machine (e.g., a computer) that manipulates or transforms data represented as physical (e.g., electronic, magnetic, biological, or optical) quantities within one or more memories (e.g., volatile memory, non-volatile memory, or a combination thereof), registers, or other machine components that receive, store, transmit, or display information.

When implemented in software, any of the applications, services, and engines described herein may be stored in any tangible, non-transitory computer readable memory such as on a magnetic disk, a laser disk, solid state memory device, molecular memory storage device, or other storage medium, in a RAM or ROM of a computer or processor, etc. Although the example systems disclosed herein are disclosed as including, among other components, software and/or firmware executed on hardware, it should be noted that such systems are merely illustrative and should not be considered as limiting. For example, it is contemplated that any or all of these hardware, software, and firmware components could be embodied exclusively in hardware, exclusively in software, or in any combination of hardware and software. Accordingly, persons of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciate that the examples provided are not the only way to implement such systems.

Thus, while the present invention has been described with reference to specific examples, which are intended to be illustrative only and not to be limiting of the invention, it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that changes, additions or deletions may be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

It should also be understood that, unless a term is expressly defined in this patent using the sentence “As used herein, the term ‘_(——————)’ is hereby defined to mean . . . ” or a similar sentence, there is no intent to limit the meaning of that term, either expressly or by implication, beyond its plain or ordinary meaning, and such term should not be interpreted to be limited in scope based on any statement made in any section of this patent (other than the language of the claims). To the extent that any term recited in the claims at the end of this patent is referred to in this patent in a manner consistent with a single meaning, that is done for sake of clarity only so as to not confuse the reader, and it is not intended that such claim term be limited, by implication or otherwise, to that single meaning. Finally, unless a claim element is defined by reciting the word “means” and a function without the recital of any structure, it is not intended that the scope of any claim element be interpreted based on the application of 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) and/or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 112, sixth paragraph.

Moreover, although the foregoing text sets forth a detailed description of numerous different embodiments, it should be understood that the scope of the patent is defined by the words of the claims set forth at the end of this patent. The detailed description is to be construed as exemplary only and does not describe every possible embodiment because describing every possible embodiment would be impractical, if not impossible. Numerous alternative embodiments could be implemented, using either current technology or technology developed after the filing date of this patent, which would still fall within the scope of the claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A graphical configuration system for a process control system of a process plant, the graphical configuration system comprising: a graphical configuration application comprising a set of machine-executable instructions stored on one or more memories and executing, via one or more processors, in an configuration environment of the process control system of the process plant, the graphical configuration application providing a user interface via which a draft of a configuration of a display view is presented, the display view configuration defining respective links between one or more graphical elements included on the display view and one or more control elements included in an operating environment of the process control system of the process plant so that, upon download and execution of the display view at a user interface device included in the operating environment, respective indications of one or more values that are generated by the one or more control elements while executing in the operating environment of the process control system to control the process at the process plant are presented and repeatedly updated at the executing display view; and the graphical configuration application providing, via the user interface, a validation tool configured to: validate, within the configuration environment and prior to a publication of the draft of the display view configuration, at least one of a runtime appearance or runtime behavior of the draft of the display view configuration, the validation of the draft of the display view configuration based on data provided by one or more data sources that are included in the process control system and that are external to the draft of the display view configuration, wherein publications of display view configurations are allowed to be provided to the operating environment for execution; and present one or more results of the validation of the draft of the display view configuration at the user interface of the graphical configuration application.
 2. The graphical configuration system of claim 1, wherein: the draft display view configuration includes a graphical element object including a field for storing a reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources; the validation of the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the draft display view configuration includes a real-time validation of contents of the field while the field is being populated via the user interface of the graphical configuration application, the real-time validation of the contents of the field including a real-time validation of at least one of: a path to the data provided by the one or more data sources, a presence of the data at the one or more data sources, or an expected type of the data provided by the one or more data sources; and when at least a portion of the contents of the field are determined in real-time to be invalid, the presentation of the one or more results of the real-time validation includes an indication of the invalidity within the field while the field is being populated.
 3. The graphical configuration system of claim 2, wherein the reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources is a datalink or a hyperlink.
 4. The graphical configuration system of claim 2, wherein: the graphical element object including the field for storing the reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources is a first graphical element object; and the first graphical element object is referenced by a second graphical element object, the second graphical element object included in the draft display view configuration and defining a second graphical element on the display view so that the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the draft display view configuration includes a presentation of the data provided by the one or more data sources at the second graphical element.
 5. The graphical configuration system of claim 1, wherein: the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the draft display view configuration is presented on the user interface provided by the graphical configuration application and includes a simulation of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration; the graphical configuration application is further configured to obtain one or more test input values, and apply the obtained one or more test input values at one or more graphical elements included in the simulation of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration; and the one or more results of the validation of the draft display view configuration include at least one of a simulated runtime appearance or a simulated runtime behavior of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration, the at least one of the simulated runtime appearance or the simulated runtime behavior resulting from the application of the one or more test input values at the one or more graphical elements.
 6. The graphical configuration system of claim 5, wherein the simulation of the display view is provided via a preview of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration within the configuration environment.
 7. The graphical configuration system of claim 5, wherein at least one of: at least a first portion of the one or more test input values is entered via a user control of the validation tool; at least a second portion of the one or more test input values is obtained from a data file that is indicated via a user control of the validation tool; or at least a third portion of the one or more test input values are indicated, via the user interface of the validation tool, and are obtained from the operating environment of the process control system.
 8. The graphical configuration system of claim 5, wherein the one or more test values include different sets of test values that are to be applied to one or more different graphical elements at different points in time during the simulation.
 9. The graphical configuration system of claim 1, wherein: the validation of the draft display view configuration comprises (i) a determination of a measurement of visual salience of the draft display view configuration, and (ii) a comparison of the measured visual salience of the draft display view configuration with at least one of a graphical display standard, a graphical display best practice, or a visual salience measurement of another display view; and the data provided by the one or more data sources external to the draft display view configuration includes at least one of: a parameter value indicative of the graphical display standard, a parameter value indicative of the graphical display best practice, or the visual salience measurement of the another display view.
 10. The graphical configuration system of claim 9, wherein the validation of the draft display view configuration comprises a determination of a clutter index, the clutter index calculated based on a plurality of different visual salience measurements of the draft display view configuration, and the clutter index indicative of a measure of a density and/or a disorder of graphical elements included in the draft display view configuration.
 11. The graphical configuration system of claim 9, wherein the clutter index is determined for a selected area of the draft display view configuration.
 12. The graphical configuration system of claim 9, wherein the measurement of visual salience of the draft display view configuration is based on at least one of: a respective count of at least one of: different graphical elements included in the draft display view configuration; different types of graphical elements included in the draft display view configuration; unique control tags indicated in the draft display view configuration; or unique control parameters indicated in the draft display view configuration; an amount of whitespace included in the draft display view configuration; or respective prominences of various portions and/or graphical elements of the draft display view configuration.
 13. The graphical configuration system of claim 1, wherein: the graphical configuration application further provides, via the user interface, a user control to enter comments associated with the draft display view configuration, the comments displayed within a text box overlaid onto the draft display view configuration at a particular location indicated via the user interface of the graphical configuration application; the comments associated with the draft display view configuration are excluded from any publication of the draft display view configuration; and the graphical configuration application is further configured to permit the comments to be at least one of viewed, modified, edited, reviewed, rejected, deleted, or accepted via multiple instances of the user interface of the graphical configuration application.
 14. A method of validating a draft of a display view for execution in operating environment of a process control system of a process plant, the method comprising: obtaining, at a user interface provided by a graphical configuration application comprising a set of machine-executable instructions stored on the one or more memories and executing, via one or more processors, in an configuration environment of the process control system of the process plant, a draft of a configuration of a display view, the display view configuration defining respective links between one or more graphical elements included on the display view and one or more control elements included in the operating environment of the process control system of the process plant so that, upon download and execution of the display view at a user interface device included in the operating environment, respective indications of one or more values that are generated by the one or more control elements while executing in the operating environment of the process control system to control the process at the process plant are presented and repeatedly updated at the executing display view; validating, within the configuration environment and by the graphical configuration application, at least one of a runtime appearance or runtime behavior of at least a portion of the draft of the display view configuration prior to publishing the draft of the display view configuration, the validating based on data provided by one or more data sources that are included in the process control system and that are external to the draft of the display view configuration, wherein draft display view configurations and draft graphical element configurations are prohibited from being provided to the operating environment, and wherein published display view configurations are allowed to be provided to the operating environment for execution; and presenting one or more results of the validation of the at least the portion of the draft of the display view configuration at the user interface of the graphical configuration application.
 15. The method of claim 14, wherein validating the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration comprises: validating contents of a field of a graphical element object that is included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration in real-time while the field is being populated via the user interface of the graphical configuration application, the field for storing a reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources; and when at least a portion of the contents of the field of the graphical element object is determined in real-time to be invalid, presenting the one or more results of the real-time validation includes presenting, within the field, an indication of the invalidity in real-time while the field is being populated.
 16. The method of claim 15, wherein validating the contents of the field of the graphical element object comprises validating at least one of: a path to the data provided by the one or more data sources, a presence of the data at the one or more data sources, or an expected type of the data provided by the one or more data sources.
 17. The method of claim 15, further comprising, when the at least the portion of the contents of the field of the graphical element object is determined to be invalid, presenting one or more user controls at the user interface of the graphical configuration application via which at least one of: a new data item is created, the data stored at the one or more data sources is modified, or a type of data stored at the one or more data sources is modified.
 18. The method of claim 16, wherein: the graphical element object including the field for storing the reference to the data provided by the one or more data sources is a first graphical element object; and the first graphical element object is referenced by a second graphical element object, the second graphical element object included in the draft display view configuration and defining a second graphical element on the display view so that the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the draft display view configuration includes a presentation of the data provided by the one or more data sources at the second graphical element.
 19. The method of claim 14, further comprising: presenting the at least one of the runtime appearance or the runtime behavior of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration on the user interface provided by the graphical configuration application, including presenting a simulation of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration; obtaining, via the graphical configuration application, one or more test input values; and applying the obtained one or more test input values at one or more graphical elements included in the simulation of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration; and wherein presenting the one or more results of the validation of the draft display view configuration includes presenting at least one of a simulated runtime appearance or a simulated runtime behavior of the display view as defined by the draft display view configuration, the at least one of the simulated runtime appearance or the simulated runtime behavior resulting from the applied one or more test input values.
 20. The method of claim 19, wherein obtaining the one or more test input values comprises obtaining at least one of: a first portion of one or more test input values via a user control of the validation tool; a second portion of the one or more test input values from a data file indicated via a user control of the validation tool; or a third portion of the one or more test input values from the operating environment of the process control system.
 21. The method of claim 19, wherein applying the one or more test values at the one or more graphical elements comprises applying different sets of test values to one or more different graphical elements at different points in time during the simulation.
 22. The method of claim 14, wherein validating the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration comprises (i) determining a measurement of visual salience of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration, and (ii) comparing the measured visual salience of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration with at least one of a graphical display standard, a graphical display best practice, or a visual salience measurement of another display view.
 23. The method of claim 22, wherein determining the measurement of visual salience of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration includes determining a respective count of at least one of: different graphical elements included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; different types of graphical elements included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; unique control tags indicated in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; or unique control parameters indicated in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration.
 24. The method of claim 23, wherein at least one of: determining the respective count of the unique control tags indicated in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration includes determining a respective count of unique control tags utilized by linked and/or embedded Graphic Element Modules (GEMs) that are included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; or determining the respective count of the unique control parameters indicated in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration includes determining a respective count of unique control parameters utilized by the linked and/or embedded Graphic Element Modules (GEMs) that are included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration.
 25. The method of claim 23, wherein determining the measurement of visual salience of the at least the portion of draft display view configuration further includes determining at least one of: an amount of whitespace included in the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; respective prominences of various portions and/or graphical elements of the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration; or a clutter index of the at least a portion of the draft display view configuration, the clutter index indicative of a measure of density and/or a disorder of graphical elements included in the draft display view configuration.
 26. The method of claim 14, wherein the at least the portion of the draft display view configuration is a part of an entirety of the draft display view configuration presented on the user interface; and the method further comprises receiving a selection of the part of the entirety of the draft display view configuration presented on the user interface.
 27. The method of claim 14, further comprising providing, via the user interface of the graphical configuration application, a user control to enter comments associated with the draft display view configuration, and presenting received comments within a text box overlaid onto the draft display view configuration at a particular location indicated via the user interface of the graphical configuration application; and wherein the comments associated with the draft display view configuration are excluded from any publication of the draft display view configuration.
 28. The method of claim 27, further comprising permitting the received comments to be at least one of viewed, modified, edited, reviewed, rejected, deleted, or accepted via multiple instances of the user interface of the graphical configuration application. 